Hugh Wybrew was born in Ilford. During the National Service in the royal Air Force I, he spent most of the two years learning Russian. At Oxford Hugh read the theology at The Queens College, and spent a year at the Russian Theological Institute of St Sergius in Paris before training for the priesthood in the Church of England at Lincoln Theological College. He was ordained in the Diocese of Southwark in 1960, and spent four years as an assistant curate in East Dulwich. He then returned to Oxford to teach at St Stephen’s house, an Anglican Theological College. From 1973 to 1983 he was the Vicar of St John the Baptist. Hugh then spent two and a half years as Secretary of the fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. He then went to Jerusalem to serve as Dean of St George’s Anglican Cathedral.