Archpriest Sergei Petrovich Rasskazovsky was born in Leningrad into a family of believing parents. His father died when his son was two years old. He studied at a secondary school. Because of his mother's serious illness, for several years he lived and studied in an orphanage, then in a boarding school.
From the age of fifteen he worked as a turner at the plant. After graduating from the evening school of working youth with a silver medal, he entered the full-time department of the Electro-Physical Faculty of the Leningrad Electro-Technical Institute, graduating in 1974.
In 1973 he started working at the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences as an engineer.
From 1977 he studied full-time at the Leningrad Orthodox Theological Academy, at the same time studying as an external student at the same Seminary.
In 1981, he graduated with honours from the Academy and Seminary and was appointed to teach dogmatic theology at the Seminary.
In 1982 he completed and defended his dissertation at the LDA in the Department of Dogmatic Theology on the topic:
"Critical evaluation of the ecclesiological views of Prof.-Prot. Pavel Svetlov, expressed by him in the
Where is the Universal Church? - On the Question of the Unification of the Churches and the Doctrine of the Church (1905)", for which he was awarded the degree of Candidate of Theology.
In 1991, he was elected Scientific Secretary of the LDA&S.
Since 1996 he has also taught dogmatic theology at the Theological Academy.
From 1991-1999 he taught dogmatic theology at the Russian Christian Humanities Institute in St Petersburg.
In 1991 on Holy Thursday in the Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God in St. Petersburg he was ordained a deacon, and on the night of Easter at the liturgy he was ordained a priest.
He served in the academic church in the name of St. John the Theologian, served as a confessor at the Church Theological Children's School at the St. John the Divine Academy, since 1998 he has been the rector of the church in the name of St. Basil the Great at the Centre for Gardeners "Russian Village".
Participant of many theological conversations, church-society assemblies, conferences and seminars. Three times from 1983 to 1991 he was elected vice-president of CINDESMOS, the World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth.
Since 2000, full member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
By decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on 30 December 1998 he was appointed rector of the newly opened parish in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Johannesburg, South Africa.
29 December 2000. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to open the Suburbs of the Russian Orthodox Church in Toronto, Canada, and to appoint Archpriest Sergius Rasskazovsky as its rector.
Website of the Russian Orthodox Church in Toronto
Address: Patriarchal suburbs of the Russian Orthodox Church in Toronto. Parish of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
66 Oakmount Road, Apt. 513, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6P 2M8,
Phone: (101- 416) 239-0525