[1] He was born on December 17, 1974, in Trenton, New Jersey to Soviet refugees Alexander Nikolaevich Olhovsky and Evdokia Grigorievna (née Rusinovich) fleeing the USSR during World War II.

[4] In May 2006, Subdeacon Nicholas served as a delegate to the IV All-Diasporan Church Council and on Pentecost of that year, June 11, was ordained to the diaconate[5] and assigned to Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

On 8 September, his spouse, Elizabeth, unexpectedly died,[7] and a memorial fund was set up in her name to assist the frescoing of her home parish of St. Seraphim of Sarov in Sea Cliff, NY.

In 2013, he accompanied Archbishop Kyrill (Dmitrieff) of San Francisco and the Kursk Root Icon to the Diocese of Montreal and Canada, the Orthodox Church in Japan, and the Metropolia of Primorye.

[17] On April 27 of the same year, at the Cathedral of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Munich, Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin and Germany elevated him to the rank of Archimandrite.

The nomination ceremony was led by Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, in the concelebration of members of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Church Abroad and hierarchs who arrived at the celebrations dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the glorification of St. John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco.

[21] On September 13, 2022, the ROCOR Council of Bishops, which met in the Cathedral of Our Lady the Sign in New York, elected him the seventh First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

[24] On 17 September, 2022, at the end of all-night vigil at the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady “of the Sign” in New York, Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan, newly-elected First Hierarch of the ROCOR, emerged through the Royal Doors to the ambo in his black klobuk and common episcopal mantle.

Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and all Germany and Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America then endowed the blue mantle and white klobuk to him, which he donned with the aid of attending subdeacons.

[25] On 18 September 2022, ceremonies surrounding the enthronement of Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York, newly-elected Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, took place.