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Kallistos Ware, acrylic on canvas, 2022
Peaceful look, without the need to control. As if experiencing the weight of the blessing given to him, the Bishop lifts the blessed weight of the Di- vine gift he has received and says: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” — Vasileios Thermos
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh,
acrylic on canvas, 2022
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, who served as a bishop in London from 1957 to 2003, was best known as a writer and broadcaster on prayer and the Christian life. This re- markable, indeed saintly, bishop said: “We should try to live in such a way that if the Gospels were lost, they could be re-written by looking at us.” After reading classics, he went on to study physics, chemistry, and biology at the Sorbonne School of Science. In 1939 he was qualified as a physician. During the years the German army occupied France when he was a physician active in the Maquis, a section of the French resistance, he had the occasion to use his medical skills to save the life of a German soldier. In 1953 he was appointed hegoumen, in 1956 archimandrite, then in 1962 archbishop of the newly created Diocese of Sourozh, encompassing Britain and Ireland.
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