Protopresbyter Michael Polsky passed away on this day in 1960. Fr. Michael was born on November 6, 1891, in the village of Novo-Troitskaya, Kuban region, into the family of psalmists Afanasy Ivanovich and Lyubov Grigorievna. His father's side of the family included clergymen, and his mother's side included Cossacks. He received his education at the Stavropol Theological School and Seminary, from which he graduated first class on June 15, 1914. On July 29, 1920, Bishop Sergii (Lavrov) of the Black Sea ordained Michael a deacon and on September 1, 1920, as presbyter for St. Archangel Michael Cathedral in Temryuk, Kuban region. By the end of the year, Bishop Sergii left for Constantinople with the retreating White Army. In September of 1921, Fr. Michael enrolled in the Moscow Theological Academy. After its closure, he studied at the Higher Theological Institute. In 1923, he visited the Sarov and Optina Hermitages and became the spiritual son of St. Alexy (Soloviev) of Zosima Hermitage. In February 1922, Fr. Michael received from the Holy Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky) the right to missionary preaching in the churches of the Moscow diocese. In 1923, due to opposition to renovationist schism, he was arrested and spent four months in Butyrka prison. On July 3, 1923, he was arrested again and served a sentence in Solovki, where he worked as a net maker and fisherman with the Holy New Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky). In 1926, in Solovki, he was awarded both the kamilavka and the pectoral cross. In 1926, from Solovki, with Bishop Platon (Rudnev) of Bogorodsk, he was sent to serve exiles in Ust-Sysolsk. By the end of serving his prison term (October 11, 1929), Fr. Michel went underground. He did not recognize Metropolitan Sergii's (Stragorodoskii) new course and maintained contacts with the followers of St. Joseph of Petrograd. On March 5, 1930, with the assistance of the architect Maksimov, Fr. Michael crossed the Soviet-Persian border. From August 1, 1930, Fr. Michael had been attached to St. Nicholas Church of the ROCOR in Tehran. With the help of British officials, on October 23, 1930, he arrived at the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. There, in 1931, he published an essay on the situation of the Church in Soviet Russia, which caused controversy among prominent emigration representatives such as Metropolitan Eleutherius (Bogoiavlenskii), Ivan A. Ilyin, Pavel .N. Milyukov, and Anton V. Kartashev. On June 30, 1934, Archbishop Anastasii (Gribanovsky) of Kishinev and Khotyn, who resided in Jerusalem, appointed Fr. Michael a rector of the community in Beirut. In April 1935, by resolution of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR, Fr. Michael was elevated to archpriest. From January 3, 1938, he was Rector of the Dormition Parish of the ROCOR in London, Great Britain. In July 1938, together with Archbishop Nestor (Anisimov) of Kamchatka and Archimandrite Nathanael (Lvov), Fr. Michael took part in the celebrations in London dedicated to the 950th anniversary of the baptism of Rus'. In August 1938, in Serbia, he presented a report at the Second All-Diaspora Council - "On the Spiritual State of the Russian People under the Rule of Atheists." During the war, when German air bombs and several parishioners repeatedly damaged the Church of the Russian community on Buckingham Palace Road were killed, Fr. Michael spiritually nurtured the flock, paying special attention to the youth. By the decision of Archbishop Tikhon (Troitskii) of San Francisco on May 1, 1948, he was accepted into the clergy of the Cathedral of the Mother of God of Joy of All Who Sorrow in San Francisco. Upon arrival in North America Fr. Michael continued his missionary and apologetic activities, aggressively defending in the press and when visiting parishes in Seattle and Vancouver the canonical subordination to the ROCOR Council of Bishops in America. The culmination of these works was Fr. Michael's participation in 1948 in the legal process for the ownership of the Transfiguration Church in Los Angeles, which ended with the victory for the ROCOR. His book The Canonical Position of the Supreme Church Authority in the USSR and Abroad, published in Russian in 1948, opened up a discussion of whether church life in the diaspora should be built around national or territorial principles. Priest Alexander Schmeman defended the territorial principle in several articles. In 1952, in response to Fr. Alexander, Fr. Michael published an essay on the situation of the Russian Exarchate of Ecumenical Patriarchate (see below). Fr. Michael problematically identifies the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church who communicated with Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodsky) as apostates. At the same time, referring to Apostolic Canon 34 as the foundation of conciliarity, Fr. Michael, according to Fr. Vadim Suvorov, in his understanding of Church unity, "paradoxically comes close to 'eucharistic ecclesiology' and to the pneumatological approach to the Church, which were formulated in the twentieth century by [Protopresbyter] N. Afanasiev." The first volume of Fr. Michael's major work, New Russian Martyrs, came out in Russian in 1949. For the first time in one collection, the author combined information from the press and testimonies about those who suffered for the faith. Some of the information was collected by Fr. Michael while he was living illegally in the USSR. In 1955, Fr. Michael became the protopresbyter of the ROCOR Cathedral in San Francisco and deputy chairman of the bishop. The Western American Episcopal Council considered him a candidate for bishop. On March 19, 1956, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR pointed out Fr. Michael's "inattention to the assignment given to him to preside over the parish meeting of the Seattle parish and for the deviations from the Parish Charter made there" and issued "a severe reprimand for inappropriate and seductive words about the Eastern Patriarchs, said while carrying out an order from the Supreme Church Authority (...)" The second volume of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia was published in 1957. The materials from both volumes formed the basis for compiling the list of the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia glorified by the ROCOR in 1981. In 1959, the third volume of the collection was prepared for publication but did not see the light of day. Fr. Seraphim (Rose) used it for his book Russia's Catacomb Saints. In 1925, the wife of P. Tatyana Vasilievna, who was born in 1897, died. A daughter, Lydia, born in 1915, remained in the USSR and was persecuted because of a book published by her father in 1931. On May 21, 1960, Fr. Michael died suddenly without leaving a will. He was buried on May 23, 1960, at the Serbian Cemetery in Colma, California. As a confessor in London of Great Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna, Fr. Michael received Holy Royal Passion-Bearers from her belongings, which were later transferred to Holy Trinity Monastery. In 1998, he was rehabilitated in Russia. Relevant sources: Mrs Sophia Goodman, "Fr. Michael Would Open This Bag and Say: ‘Fill, Fill, Fill!,’” Nicolas Mabin, "Archimandrite Nicholas Gibbes: From the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile to the Moscow Patriarchate." Fr. Michael Polsky: "The Canonical Position of the Supreme Church Authority in the USSR. Part III: its Paths Abroad." The American Metropolia and the Los Angeles Trial. Essay on the Position of the Russian Exarchate of the Ecumenical Jurisdiction. | 
