 Gibbes returned to England in 1928 and enrolled as an ordinand at St Stephen's House, Oxford, but again decided that ordination in the Church of England was not to be his vocation.In Harbin, China on 25 April 1934 he was received into the Orthodox church by Archbishop Nestor (Anisimov) of Kamchatka and Petropavlovsk who was there in exile.Gibbes took the baptismal name of Alexei in honour of the former Tsarevich.