In exile, he was in the camps near Warsaw.[clarification needed] In 1922 he worked in Danzig, then moved to Berlin, and studied theology and philosophy in Italy.
He lived at the Collegium Russicum and entered the Society of Jesus. In 1944 Kovalenko was ordained a priest. In Rome he organized a small publishing house, which published pamphlets and books for Russian displaced persons, visited camps for Russian refugees and displaced persons, helped the children of Saint Helena Boarding School for Russian girls in Rome, and also worked in a shelter for Russian refugees in Rome. He protested against the extradition of Russians held in the camp on Lipari by the Italian government.
In 1951 Kovalenko went to Argentina to help Archimandrite Nikolai Alekseev, where at the church of Saints Peter and Paul he created a library. Kovalenko published articles in the Paris newspaper Russian Thought, in the Catholic Russian-language press abroad, and published under the pseudonym Ochekov in the Argentine newspaper За правду! ('For the Truth').
In 1958 due to ill health, he returned to Rome, where he underwent a serious operation. Kovalenko later worked as a librarian and taught Russian at the Collegium Russicum. He died in Rome.
Sources
Kolupaev, Vladimir (2012). Брюссельское издательство «Жизнь с Богом»: Книжный мир Русского Зарубежья XX века (in Russian) (Scientific ed.). Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. ISBN978-3-8484-0980-8.
Kolupaev, Vladimir (2011). Миссия иезуитов среди русских эмигрантов в Аргентине в XX веке // Латинская Америка [Jesuit mission of Russian emigrants in Argentina in XX century / / Latin America] (in Russian). Vol. 8. pp. 81–94.
Kolupaev, Vladimir (2012). Русские издательские проекты в Аргентине в XX веке (in Russian). Vol. 1.