CHITTY, DERWAS J

CHITTY, DERWAS J., priest, educator (1901–1971). Educated at Winchester School, in 1920 he attended New College, Oxford, completing his Theology Finals in 1925. He lived in Jerusalem and Egypt off and on between 1925 and 1931. In Jerusalem he came in contact with his lifelong passion, the Orthodox Church. In 1927 he returned to England to begin training for the Anglican ministry at Cuddeston Theological College; and he attended the founding of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, making the lasting acquaintance of Vladimir Lossky (q.v.) and other important Orthodox thinkers. He was ordained deacon in the Anglican Church in 1928 and priest in 1929. While in Jerusalem from 1929 to 1931, he came very close to joining the Orthodox Church-partly because of the influence of Archbishop Anastasii of the Russian Mission. He served the parish of Upton, Berkshire, from 1931 to 1940 and 1946 to 1968, and retired from the Anglican ministry. His book on monasticism (q.v.), The Desert a City, from the Birkbeck Lectures delivered at Cambridge in 1958 to 1959, has been influential among Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike.