Priest Sergiy (Kosov)

Father Sergiy Kosov (Kosov Sergey Alexandrovich) was born on June 25th 1982 in the City of Moscow, Russia and baptized on July 5th 1982 at the Dormition Church in the Veshnyaki area of Moscow. His name day is on July 18th (memory of St. Sergius of Radonezh).
His mother—Kosova (maiden Solodukhina) Natalia Naumovna descend from the Kaluga region (Russia), and his father Alexander Kosov descend from the Bryansk region (Russia). After completing school, the parents came to Moscow to get an education, met each other, got married, and stayed in the capital.
Father Sergiy spent his childhood in Moscow, except every summer which he spent with his grandparents in the rural area, helping them in their difficult village life.

It is from his paternal grandmother Vera that Fr. Sergiy heard his first prayers, and his first praying was also with her.
While studying in the public school system in Moscow he met his future wife.
After completion of high school, he was accepted to Moscow State Pedagogical University, which he later successfully graduated from with professional degree in physical and military training and was awarded the military rank of Lieutenant.
From 2004 to 2006, Father Sergiy served in the armed forces as a rifle platoon commander and Deputy commander for educational work with personnel. At the end of his service, he was awarded the military rank of senior Lieutenant.
After returning to civilian life Father Sergiy began his path of conscious churching.
He found his spiritual father—Hieroschemonk Theodosius Elfimov, a resident of St. Michael-Athos Zakuban hermitage in the Republic of Adygea.
Under his guidance future Fr. Sergiy started to help and carry out obediences in the churches at the above-mentioned monastery, as well as in the metochion of the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia—the Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour in Peredelkino (Moscow).
In 2011, he married his wife in church (she is also a spiritual child of Hieroschemonk Theodosius) and the next year with the blessing of his spiritual father, he entered Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY In April 2013 and January 2015, sons Naum and Savva were born, and in January 2018, a daughter Pelagia was born.
On May 29, 2016, by Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, first Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Father Sergiy was ordained a deacon and assigned to Holy Trinity monastery in Jordanville, NY.
In 2017, he graduated from the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville with a bachelor degree in Divinity. During his studies at the Seminary, he carried out obedience in the monastery’s icon-mounting workshop.
On January 9, 2018, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan and assigned to Holy Trinity monastery in Jordanville, NY.
On August 12, 2018, Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York appointed him as rector of the St. Joseph of Optina church in Virginia Beach, Virginia.