Both the Episcopal Cathedral and the Russian Orthodox church in Manila were destroyed in 1945 by Allied bombardment during the city's liberation at the end of the Second World War.
In 1949, Archbishop John Maximovitch and 5,500 Russian Orthodox from China were relocated to Tubabao (now part of Guiuan, Eastern Samar) in the Visayas,[1] by the International Refugee Organization, with the permission of the newly-sovereign Republic of the Philippines.
Archbishop Maximovitch then established a wooden church, orphanage, and other buildings in Tubabao exclusively for the Russian refugees.
Tubabao, however, was and still a small, underdeveloped island which is humid, prone to typhoons, and at times inaccessible due to the sea state conditions.
Archbishop Maximovitch did not preach the Orthodox faith to locals, and no Filipino was baptized, chrismated, ordained or consecrated during his stay.
In August 2013, Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, sent Archpriest Seraphim Bell and Fr.
Silouan (Thompson) to help re-establish the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (Canonical and Official Representation in the Philippines) and made the first Divine Liturgy, baptism of catechumens, trained chanters (http://orthodoxnepal.org/2013/09/dn-silouan-training-cantors/) and the blessing of the first ROCOR mission in the Municipality of Sta.
Included in the group were the 10 newly baptized Christians from the ROCOR parish of St. Nikolai Velimirovich in Palo together with Fr.