Msgr. Paolo Pezzi was born in 1960 in Russi, Emilia Romagna, and completed his studies in Philosophy and Theology from 1985-1990 at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Pezzi was ordained as a priest on December 22, 1990, in the Priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo. He obtained his doctorate in Pastoral Theology from the Lateran University. In 1993, Pezzi was sent to Russia, where he completed his pastoral mission.
From 2006 to September of 2007, he was the rector of the Major Seminary “Mary Queen of the Apostles” in St Petersburg.
On Spetember 21, 2007, Pezzi was appointed as metropolitan Archbishop for the Archdiocese of Mother of God in Moscow by Pope Benedict XVI.
His episcopal ordination was on October 28, 2007. On June 29, 2008, in occasion with the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, at Saint Peter’s Basilica, Msgr. Paolo Pezzi received from his Holiness Benedict XVI the Archbishop Pallium, which represents the reality of pastoral care and is a symbol of authority in which the metropolitan Archbishop, in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, is legitimately invested in his constituency, the metropolitan Archdiocese of Mother of God in Moscow.

Source: Santuario di Oropa