His Grace Bishop Alexander (Mileant) of Buenos Aires and South America Reposes

On the night of September 12-13, after a lengthy illness, His Grace Bishop Alexander of Buenos Aires and South America departed to the Lord. A pannikhida will be held this evening at Holy Trinity Church in Oxnard, CA. A pannikhida will be held there also on Thursday before the body of the newly-reposed hierarch, and the following morning, a hierarchal Divine Liturgy and the funeral. The burial will be held at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

The late Bishop Alexander was born Alexander Vasilievich Mileant in Odessa in 1938. During the Second World War his father disappeared at the front, and his family, fleeing the Bolsheviks, went to the West. They lived in Prague, in Rome, and finally in Buenos Aires, where the young Alexander received his primary education and then completed a seven-year electro-technical school. He worked as a machine draftsman for several companies. He then enrolled in Buenos Aires University.

From the age of 8, Alexander served as an altar boy under Archbishop Panteleimon, then under Archbishop Afanassy, who took him under his wing and gave him three years of formal theological training. Vladyka Afanassy possessed a great theological library. Wishing to read the works of the Holy Fathers in the original, Alexander first learned modern Greek, then ancient Greek.

At the end of 1963, Alexander enrolled at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, which he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology in 1967. A year earlier, Archbishop Averky (Taushev, +1976) ordained him to the deaconate, and during Great Lent, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky, +1985) of blessed memory ordained him to the priesthood and sent to Protection of the Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church in Los Angeles, where he served as rector for 31 years. From 1971-1985, Fr Alexander led several youth pilgrimages to Greece and the Holy Land. While spiritually nourishing his flock, Fr Alexander continued his scientific education, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics in 1978, then a Master’s Degree in Electronics, and finally, in 1983, an Engineer’s Degree from the University of Southern California in Communications. He worked in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA. His lay work enabled Fr Alexander to become an expert in computers, which in turn helped him publish numerous missionary pamphlets which enjoyed great popularity in Russia and abroad. Today there are over 300 brochures published in Russian, English and Spanish on Orthodox Christianity.

In 1995, Protopriest Alexander was tonsured to the monkhood in Holy Trinity Monastery and given the name Alexander in honor of Holy Martyr Archbishop Alexander of Kharkov, who died in prison in 1939 (until then, Fr Alexander bore the name of St Alexander Nevsky, whose feast day was celebrated yesterday).

On May 28, 1998, Archimandrite Alexander was consecrated a bishop at the Synodal Cathedral in New York and appointed Ruling Bishop of Buenos Aires and South America.