On March 10th and in his 90th year, Archpriest Sergei Tchertkoff, a clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and father of matushka Maria Potapov, reposed in the Tolstoy Foundation retirement home, not far from New York.
Sergei Mikhailovitch Tchertkoff, a member of an aristocratic family, was born in 1908 in Voronezh. After the Revolution of 1917, the Tshertkoff family shared in the fate of many Russian refugees, far from their much-suffering Motherland. The sisters of the future Fr. Sergei established themselves in Romania, while he did so in Yugoslavia. During World War II, Fr. Sergei found himself in a Romanian concentration camp, where he experienced a spiritual transfiguration. Having miraculously saved from death on a number of occasions, he promised to serve God and man.
In 1945, Fr. Sergei was liberated from prison and managed to get to Paris, where he was reunited with his family. In 1947, he was ordained a deacon, and served in that capacity until 1970. From 1952 to 1962, Deacon Sergey accompanied Holy Hierarch John Maximovitch in his travels throughout the West-European diocese of the ROCOR. The great archpastor exerted a profound influence upon his young concelebrant, especially when they served the Liturgy together at night. Fr. Sergei witnessed the fact that Vladyka John would begin the proskomedia - the opening portion of the Divine Liturgy, during which the bread and wine for the Eucharist are prepared - at 3:00 AM, commemorating thousands of names, and removing a particle of bread from the prosphora for each one. Fr. Sergei adopted this practice of Archbishop John’s, and to the very end of this life would serve the proskomedia in that manner, praying for the health and salvation or for the repose of souls of literally thousands, each of whom he individually commemorated.
At the same time, after the close of World War II, Fr. Sergei dedicated himself to serving refugees: he saved tens of thousands from persecution at the hands of the Soviet authorities, and facilitated their emigration to France, the USA, Canada, and South America. In the early 1950s, Fr. Sergey, using his ties with the French Foreign Ministry, directed his efforts towards saving the women's monastery of Lesno from the threatening Stalinist regime. Through his efforts, the monastery was able to evacuate from Communist-held Yugoslavia and to come to France.
In 1966, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad appointed Protodeacon Sergei Tchertkoff to the post of administrator of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. After the Six Day War in 1967, Fr. Sergey signed an agreement with Israel which granted compensation for the damage caused the Ecclesiastical Mission by the war, and recognition of the status quo, by which Israel promised that the properties of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem were to be renovated, returned to those who had owned it prior to the 1967 war, and were to remain inviolate.
In 1970 in Paris, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, ordained Protodeacon Sergei Tchertkoff to the priesthood. From 1973 to 1977, he served as the rector of the Russian parish in Tehran, which had been without a priest for several years. Upon acquainting himself with the conditions of poverty in which the Russian elderly lived in Iran, Fr. Sergei set for himself the immediate task of constructing a home for the elderly in Tehran. Fr. Sergei's diplomatic skills enabled him to obtain from the Queen of Iran not only financing for the home for the aged, but life-time pensions for the Russian elderly.
Fr. Sergei believed that his friendship with the Iranian Court came about through the will of God, in the following manner: Across the road from the Russian church in Tehran, there was a Greek Orthodox Church which was for some time without a priest. The warden of the Greek Church at one time had once studied in an Iranian school together with the Queen, and spoke excellent French. She asked the Russian priest's assistance; he of course responded, and served in the Greek church, both in Slavonic and in French. In thanks for this assistance, the warden of the Greek community used her long-established friendship with the Queen in order to find the means to construct the Russian home for the elderly.
From 1985 to 1988, Fr. Sergei was the rector of church in Cannes, and beginning in 1988 was in charge of a parish at a home for the elderly near Paris. Fr. Sergei and his matushka spent the last years of their lives in retirement at the Novo Diveyevo Monastery, near New York. In 1997, they moved to the Tolstoy Foundation Nursing Home. On September 7, 1997, his matushka, Anna Mikhailovna, nee Rodzianko, granddaughter of the last President of the Imperial Duma, departed this life.
March 15th would have been the 52nd anniversary of Fr. Sergei’s ordination and service to the Church. Until the final moment of his life, his mental acumen and love of life did not leave him. He loved company and generously shared his memories with his visitors. Each of his many visitors came away with a little portion of the humility, warmth, and wisdom of experience possessed by this remarkable person and pastor.
Fr. Sergei was buried next to his matushka in the cemetery of the Novo Diveyevo Monastery near New York.