Many Old Orthodox escaped to Siberia and to neighbouring countries, above all Rumania. The greater part of them never lost or repudiated the priesthood

In the course of the time, the priestly Old Believers founded a centre near the Rogozhsky Cemetry in Moscow, and later on the monastery of Belokrinitsa in Bucovina. At that time it was in the Austrian Empire, today in Ukraine.

There had never been a succession of Old Orthodox bishops and in the reign of the Tsar Nicholas I harsh laws regulated the reception converts from the official Church of state.

Austria, where the monastery of Belo-Krinitsa was found, was a place of freedom for the Old Believers, thanks to the laws promulgated in 1783 by Emperor Joseph II. In Vienna the Minister of the Interior, Count Kolovrat, and the Archduke Ludwig prepared the path for permission, given from the Emperor Ferdinand in 1844, to invite a foreign bishop to serve the needs of the Old Orthodox/Old Believers in the dominions of the Empire.

Two monks, Pavel (Velikodvorski) and Alimpii (Miloradov) were chosen in order to find an suitable candidate in the non-Russian Orthodox churches. For generations, Orthodox communities of Old Believers had lived in European Turkey, having fled from the violence in Russia. It was natural that the first steps in the search for a bishop would be amongst them.

According to the records of the Russian government, in the mid-1800's approximately 4,000 Old Orthodox lived in the Austrian Empire, the greater part in Bucovina, near the border with Russia near the River Prut. Approximately 36,000 lived in the Ottoman Empire: the majority in northern Dobrugia (Romania), near the Danube delta. Others lived in Costantinopole, in other European territories of the Empire, and some in Asia Minor.

The monks Pavel and Alimpii met Metropolitan Amvrosii, formerly of Sarajevo in Bosnia, who was in exile from his see for political reasons. It was Osip Semenovich Goncharov, ataman of the Nekrasov cossacks who put the monks in contact with the Metropolitan. These cossacks were from the Don, having escaped from Russia and many of them were Old Orthodox.

Amvrosii was a Greek, born in 1791 in a village near Enos. His father, George, were a priest of the Greek Church, and gave his son the name of Andreas in the Holy Baptism.

In 1811, Andreas married and shortly after was ordained priest by Metropolita Matthaos. In 1814 his wife died, having given birth to a son named George. Three years after widowhood, he was tonsured a monk with the monastic name of Ambrosios/Amvrosii. In 1817 he was elected Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity on the island of Halki.

Patriarch Gregorios of Constantinople made him a protosyncellos in 1827.

According to a document dated 9th September 1835, the Patriarch, assisted by four other bishops consecrated Amvrosii for the to Metropolia of Sarajevo in Bosnia. He remained in his diocese for five years, before being removed by the Turks.

On the 12th September 1840, Patriarch Anthimios II, inquired into his removal, and having certified his good reputation allowed him  to it function in Costantinopole.

A Serb, Kostantin Efimovic, was used as the interpreter between Metropolita Amvrosii and the two Old Orthodox monks. They examined his Orthodoxy, during which he introduced the aforesaid document of the Greek patriarch. Metropolitan Amvrosii and his son took time in order to inquire into the status of the Russian Orthodox Old Believers and their canonicity and of what was asked and assented to the request on 15th April 1846.

After a long journey along the Danube, the Metropolita Amvrosii and the two monks arrived in Tulcea, in Romania, where five hundred Nekrasov cosssacks, together to the monks of the monastery of Slava-Russa, their Abbot Makarii and Fr Arkadii Lavrentievskii presented the Metropolitan with the traditional bread and salt of welcome. Therefore the Metropolitan travelled to Vienna, and reached Belokrinitsa in Bucovina on the 12th October 1846. The Austrian government demanded and obtained from the Greek Patriarchate a favorable report on the Metropolitan, before giving him the permission to fix his residence in their own territory.

After a meeting on 28th October 1846 in order to discuss the procedure to receive the Metropolitan, the service was planned  for the vigil of the feast of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker.

The following day, after to having read the customary profession of faith from the service-book with Church Slavonic transliterated into Greek characters, the Metropolitan was received according to Canon 95 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council.  With the blessing of the first, and new, Metropolitan of Belokrinitsa and of All Old Orthodox Christians, Hieromonk Jerome began the Divine Liturgy in which the Metropolitan concelebrated.

Between 16th November 1846 and January 1847 Metropolitan Amvrosii celebrated the divine services and ordained clergy of all ranks. The Old Orthodox Russians now had all  three degrees of the sacred ministry, something for which long had wished. The Metropolitan read the prayers in his native language, Greek, but the deacon and the chorus used the Slavonic.

It was on 6th of January 1847 that Kirill (Timofeyev) was consecrated Bishop of Menos. Because of the lack of others two bishops,  two archpriests took their place, a procedure already used before in Church in history in cases of extreme necessity.

Many pople, including the civil dignitaries of Bucovina, participated to the event, and in gratitude to the monks, they offered a banquet in their honour.

In August 1847 there was the consecration of Arkadii, bishop Bishop of Slava-Russa, a center of Old Orthodoxy with a monastery that still it exists, near Tulceai in Romania.

The Russian Foreign Ministry threatened reprisals against the Roman Catholic government of Austria, if it did not withdraw permission for the Old Orthodox to establish the own Metropolia in the Hasburg Empire. The Holy Synod, through which the Tsar had controlled the Nikonian State Church since the time of the abolition of the Patriarchate under Peter I, threatened to cut to all financial support for the Patriarchate of Constantinople if it did not use every means within its power to persuade Metropolitan Amvrosii to change his position.

The Patriarch tried twice through the Greek Metropolitan of Karlowitz. Metropolitan Amvrosii, however, refused. The Old Orthodox Russians had convinced him that the system of the Holy Synod, created in 1700 by Peter in order to control the State Church in place of the Patriarch (and with which they they wanted no involvement) was not a canonical institution. A decree of Tsar Paul I,  had declared that the Russian monarchs were "heads of the Church" and that all the bishops of the state church were render an oath to this effect.

As a result of the diplomatic pressures, the Austrian authorities closed the monastery of Belo-Krinitsa 3th March 1848, and Metropolitan Amvrosii was sent into exile to Tzill in Stiria. After the explosion of revolutionary feeling in Vienna, with the attendance of the Count Kolovrat, the minister already mentioned, the monastery of Belo-Krinitsa was reopened at the end of 1848, even though the Metropolitan had to remain in exile. His vicar-bishop, Kyrill, consecrated Onufrii as bishop Braila and on 3rd January 1849, Sofronii (Zhirov) as bishop of Simbirsk in Russia. The successor of this last one was Antonii (Shutov), who would become the first Old Orthodox Archishop of of Moscow.

Metropolitan Amvrosii lived in exile and suffering for fifteen years, amongst people who did not even speak his  language, but was disposed to help in their need for the  prieshood. He saw all of this as the will of God. On the 28th October 1863, he sent his last official act as Primate of  Russian Old Orthodox Russians to Archbishop Antonii and all the bishops under his jurisdiction. The document begins with the words: "By the Mercy of God, the humble Orthodox Archbishop and Metropolita of all the Old Orthodox, Amvrosii." The document is signed in Greek with similar words. In the text he declared himself worried at having to live far away from his flock, and that his health did not allow him to do more, but he takes its time in order to discuss many ecclesiastical issues relating to the people under its spiritual cure.

This document clearly refutes those enemies of Old Orthodoxy who want to insinuate that the Holy Metropolitan ended his days having repudiated his flock. He died on 30th October 1863, two days after having prepared his last pastoral letter. Metropolitan Kyrill held his funeral service in Belo-Krinitsa, but the Metropolitan was buried in the Greek Orthodox cemetry in Trieste. He had loved his people and died for them. His pastoral staff was taken to Moscow and was used in the enthronement of Archbishop Alimpii as first Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia.

In 1899 the Patriarchate of Costantinopole instituted a commission in order to study the issue of Metropolitan Amvrosii and its acceptance of the supremacy of the Russian Old Orthodox Church. The commission promulgated a decree acknowledging the hierarchy established from the Metropolitan Amvrosii,  worrying Pobedonostsev, the lay procurator of the Holy Synod of the Russian state Church.

At the synod assembled in  the Monastery of Belo-Krinitsa, 150 years after his acceptance of the primacy, Metropolitan Amvrosii was canonised on Monday 11th November 1996, in the presence of both of his successors, Metropolitan Leontii of Belo-Krinitsa and Metropolita Alimpii of Moscow and all Russia.

The day of his feast was assigned as 30th October (12 November, according to the new calendar). His relics were exhumed on the 18th/31st  May 2000 andwere translated from Trieste to Braila, in Romania.