Larissa Volokhonsky (Russian: Лариса Волохонская) was born into a Jewish family in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, on 1 October 1945. After graduating from Leningrad State University with a degree in mathematical linguistics, she worked in the Institute of Marine Biology (Vladivostok) and travelled extensively in Sakhalin Island and Kamchatka (1968-1973). Volokhonsky emigrated to Israel in 1973, where she lived for two years. Having moved to the United States in 1975, she studied at Yale Divinity School (1977-1979) and at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (1979-1981), where her professors were the Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff. She completed her studies of theology with the diploma of Master of Divinity from Yale University. She began collaboration with her husband Richard Pevear in 1985