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Boris T. Pash

625 bytes added, 23:31, August 5, 2009
Added history
Called to active duty in 1940, Boris was assigned as a security officer with the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. During the later half of World War II, Boris was assigned as leader of Operation Alsos, an operation that moved with the advancing Allied forces, with direction to determine the progress made by the Axis toward developing nuclear weapons.
After the end of the war, in 1946, Colonel Boris Pash was assigned in Japan as a foreign liaison officer under General Douglas MacArthur on the staff of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP). At the time various negotiations and correspondence were under way among offices of SCAP, the Orthodox Church of Japan, the Moscow Patriarchate and its American Exarchate, and the Soviet member of the Allied Council to Japan over the return of the Church to the governance of the [[Church of Russia]]. Among these negotiations was an attempt by the chancery of the Japanese Church to make direct contact with Church officials in the United States through an American officer in SCAP, referred to in the chancery documents as "[[Dmitri (Royster) of Dallas|Mr. Royster]]", later Abp. Dmitri of Dallas. This contact was with a Metr. Benjamin, presumably Metr. [[Benjamin (Fedchenkov) of the Aleutians|Benjamin (Fedchenkov)]] the metropolitan of the [[Russian Exarchate of North America|Russian Patriarchal Exarchate]] of North America. This contact died after action was referred to the [[Church of Russia|Moscow Patriarchate]]. Col. Pash represented SCAP in negotiations with the Japanese Church and interactions with the American [[Metropolia]] in the United States of which Col. Pash's father, Metr. [[Theophilus (Pashkovsky) of San Francisco|Theophilus]], was the leader. After the Japanese Church formally requested a [[bishop]] from the Metropolia, Col. Pash used his position to ensure that a large number of U. S. Army Orthodox believers in the Tokyo area were present at the arrival of [[Bishop]] [[Benjamin (Basalyga) of Pittsburgh|Benjamin]] for his first [[Divine Liturgy]] at [[Holy Resurrection Cathedral (Tokyo, Japan)|Nicolai-do Cathedral]] in Tokyo thus thwarting expected efforts by the Soviets of an international incident at the [[cathedral]].
After his return to the United States Col. Pash held a number of other intelligence positions. While stationed in Washington D.C. in the late 1950s, he was a member of the [[parish]] of [[St. Nicholas Cathedral (Washington, D.C.)|St. Nicholas Cathedral]] and, as a member of its board of trustees, coordinated the construction of the cathedral superstructure.
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