Page 52 - AECA.org.uk ¦ Koinonia 64

gists, was the venue for the launch of the book in November 2014. “Hidden
London” is an apt description of this tiny architectural jewel not accessible to
the public in general. A very important, and until now largely undocumented,
history in the mid-nineteenth century concerns the role of the Crimean War
prisoners, which I found particularly fascinating.

The second half of the nineteenth century saw the establishment of our
own AECA and the movement towards Orthodoxy from within the Church of
England, some of which was manifested by conversion from Anglicanism to
Orthodoxy. Fr Birchall has a huge amount of detail on this phenomenon. The
early years of the twentieth century for Russian Orthodoxy were dominated, of
course, by the dramatic e?ect of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent
establishment of the Church in Exile. These years are documented in detail, as
are the important inter war years. The post Second World War period saw the
continued existence of the Church in Exile, and the strained relations between
that Church and the o?cial Patriarchate of Moscow, leading to the happier
story of the reconciliation with the Patriarchate in 2009.

This book, meticulously documented and beautifully illustrated, repre-
sents not only the most important history of Russian Orthodoxy in London to
date, but also a most signi?cant contribution to the history of relations be-
tween Anglicans and Orthodox in which the AECA has played a key role. In
concluding his 300 year history, Fr Birchall writes, “When he arrived in Eng-
land in 1713, Archimandrite Gennadius could not have known that the church
he started would endure for another three hundred years.” Would that all our
endeavours in the service of the Kingdom were so richly blessed.

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