Ilts, Anthony

Anthony Ilts was born in a small mountain village 40 km from Ljubljana , the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . In 1946, at the call of Cardinal Tisserand, he entered the Russicum . Anthony Ilts became a priest on December 25, 1951 , he was ordained by Bishop Alexander Evreinov . After completing his spiritual education in 1952, Anthony Ilts was sent to parish service. The first experience of his pastoral work was serving in one of the churches of the mining town of Charleroi in the Walloon part of Belgium , where he took care of about three thousand Italian workers.

For the first time, Anthony Ilts met Irina Posnova during a pilgrimage of Russian Catholics to Rome in 1950 , after which he began to take part in the events she conducted among Russian refugees , former prisoners of war, and workers.

In the chronicle of the events of the center “ East Christian Hearth ” and the publishing house “ Life with God ” Anthony Ilts is mentioned in connection with his participation in the Easter trip to the camps of Russian displaced persons in Germany in March 1952 . Gradually, Anthony Ilts first became a freelance assistant, and then in 1955 he was officially appointed to the Foyer Oriental Chretien and became a direct collaborator and assistant to I. Posnov in editorial and publishing affairs.

In 1958, the " World Exhibition " was held in Brussels , where the Soviet pavilion was next to the Vatican . At the suggestion of I. Posnova, a Russian section was organized in the pavilion, where the gospel in Russian and prayer books were distributed free of charge to all interested Soviet tourists. In the chapel at the Vatican pavilion, Father Anthony Ilts daily served the Divine Liturgy in Church Slavonic . From here began direct contacts with some Soviet citizens, which continued in the sending via the mail of the literature “Life with God” in the USSR.

Since 1962, after the death of Stanislav Tyszkiewicz ’s father, Anthony Ilts was appointed official censor of published literature, as well as rector of the Byzantine-Slavic rite church in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary with jurisdiction over Greek Catholics in Belgium (Nommé Recteur de l'Église Catholique àse de Belg Bruxelles), where he served more than 40 years. In 1970, in connection with the 25th anniversary of the publishing house, the Holy Father awarded Anthony Ilts the right to wear a miter .

The first independent project that Anthony Ilts embarked on was the preparation for the printing of the New Testament , then he was actively involved in the process of publishing other books and periodicals.

Since 1981, Ilts began to visit the USSR as a tourist.

The priest wrote about his work:

“Firstly, we certainly believed that someday, one day, it would end and we should prepare literature for this time, first of all, those books that are not outdated, classical. When freedom comes in Russia , they will fill the spiritual hunger for the very first time, while the Russian Orthodox Church itself begins to print. And, secondly, the World Exhibition in Brussels, 1958, gave a tremendous push to our whole business. 10-12 thousand Russians visited it personally. We had direct contact with them, and we personally saw the spiritual thirst of so many. I remember how a woman cried for me, who asked us for the gospel, but we didn’t have it anymore, everything was distributed, and she said: I was traveling with the sole purpose of going to the West to find the gospel here. ”

Anthony Ilts oversaw contacts with the Orthodox, he established good relations with the arrival of the Russian Orthodox Church MP in Brussels. The local Russian Orthodox bishop Alexander (Nemolovsky) even sent to his father Anthony, people who came to him in case of mixed Orthodox-Catholic marriages.

Every year, Anthony Ilts visited the Orthodox St. Sergius Institute in Paris at joint meetings organized by Archimandrite Kiprian (Kern) and the Benedictine House Cesar of Leuven , and cooperation with the monks of the Benedictine Abbey in Shevton was also established.

Antniy Ilts died on August 15, 1998 and was buried in a family cemetery in Slovenia.

Separate personal and working documents related to Anthony Ilts are stored in the Archive of the Christian Russia Center (Italian: " Russia Cristiana ") in Seriate , Italy , with which he had close cooperation during his lifetime. In a letter dated December 19, 1989, Ilts wrote to the founder and president of Christian Russia, Romano Scalfi :

I hereby authorize the reprint (100,000 copies) of the New Testament in Russian, published by our publishing house Life with God in 1965, permission is issued with the obligation to preserve the publishing mark of our publishing house "

• Kolupaev V.E. Keepers of the Orthodox culture: The fate of the archive and library of the publishing house “ Life with God ” in Brussels // Library business, 2010, No. 20 (134). S. 35 - 37
• “Life with God”: Description of the archive fund. / V.E. Kolupaev , Fondazione "Russia Cristiana". Pro manoscritto. Seriate (Bg), Italia: “Russia Cristiana”, 2009.54 c.
• Kolupaev V. Padre Antonij Il'c, un umile servitor dell'ecumenismo // La Nouva Europa. 2009. No. 2. P. 100-102.
• Kolupaev V.E. Brussels publishing house Life with God: The Book World of Russian Abroad of the 20th Century. Radiomissiya for Soviet listeners. Saarbrucken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012.336 s. ISBN 978-3-8484-0980-8

• Archpriest Anthony Ilts Religious figures and writers of the Russian diaspora
• In Memoriam: Mgr Antoine ILC
• Archpriest Anthony Ilts
• Kolupaev V.E. Brussels Publishing House Life with God: The Book World of Russian Abroad of the 20th Century. Radiomissiya for Soviet listeners. Saarbrucken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012.336 s. ISBN 978-3-8484-0980-8