Anna Shohov

Mrs. Anna Shohov: Church Singer, Choir Director, and Reader Mrs. Anna Shohov (neé Znosko) was born on July 8, 1938, in Brest-Litovsk, Poland, in the Russian Orthodox community. Her father, the Very Reverend Mitrophan Znosko-Borovsky, was an Orthodox priest, and her mother, Alexandra Semenovna Tsybruk, the daughter of a clergyman and a church choir singer.
Uprooted by World War II, Anna's family found themselves in a displaced persons camp in Mä§nchechof, Germany, until 1948, when her father was sent by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia to minister to the needs of the White (anti-communist) Russian émigrés in northern Africa. Anna lived with her family in Casablanca, Morocco, where she received schooling at École Jean d'Arc, École Carmel Saint Joseph, and Lycée de Jeunes Filles (French Baccalaureate School), as well as religious, language, and music instruction in the Russian Orthodox émigré community and parish school. Already at that time, Anna distinguished herself as a talented singer and reader. During the summers, in 1955-57, Anna was a counselor at the Vitiaz camp in Laffrey, near Grenoble, in the French Alps.
When Anna was in her late teens, she suffered a severe case of poliomyelitis (before the introduction of the polio vaccine), was hospitalized, and thought to be near death. Her father, then on assignment in Cannes, France, appealed to Archbishop John (Maximovitch) for prayerful intervention, and Anna recovered. Her physicians were amazed at the miraculous healing, finding her case medically incomprehensible. Anna came to the United States with her family in 1959: her father was assigned as rector of St. Seraphim Russian Orthodox Church in Sea Cliff, New York. From 1959 to 1970, Anna sang under the direction of Boris Mikhailovich Ledkovsky - a well-known émigré composer of Orthodox sacred music - in the Synodal Choir at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign in New York City, where she became renowned for her musicianship and exceptional singing voice. She studied at Molloy College and taught French at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut. Anna Znosko married Dr. Panteleymon Shohov in 1969. Dr. Shohov graduated from Boston University Medical School in 1956 and then served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force. Upon completion of military service, he returned to Sea Cliff and worked as a pathologist at Mercy Hospital in Garden City, New York.
After her marriage, Mrs. Shohov was a church singer and reader at St. Seraphim Church in Sea Cliff, where she frequently led the choir. She was an expert on the Typikon (the order of church services) and her articulate and beautiful reading voice made her an invaluable church reader. She often conducted entire church services on her own, as both reader and singer. Her singing was particularly appreciated by the faithful during the Passion Week services preceding Easter (Pascha), when she would sing solos, as well as trios with her mother and sister. Her children were raised singing in the choir, and she also taught many others to sing and read in church. She leaves her daughter Tatiana Shohov-Bianchino and son Serge Shohov, her sister Mrs. Vera Ganson, her sister-in-law Mrs. Alexandra Zezulin, and many nieces, nephews, great-nephews, great-nieces, godchildren, and other relatives. She was predeceased by her husband and her daughter Elizabeth Shohov-Olhovsky.
Mrs. Shohov died peacefully on November 28. The funeral service will be held at St. Seraphim Russian Orthodox Church in Sea Cliff on Tuesday, November 30, followed by interment at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, next to her husband and daughter.