Paris, October 23, 2019
Photo: Facebook
The Archdiocese of Russian Churches in Western Europe, led by His Eminence Archbishop John of Dubna, formerly an exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was officially received into the Moscow Patriarchate by petition of the clergy and faithful and decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Church on October 8.
Archdiocese representatives will travel to Moscow to formally sign the document of acceptance into the Russian Church on November 3.
In the meantime, the Archdiocese is welcomed as a full end equal member of the Russian Church. In this spirit, a hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia served recently at the Archdiocese’s St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris.
In particular, on Sunday, October 20, His Eminence Archbishop Michael (Donskoff), a retired ROCOR hierarch, celebrated a moleben in memory of the Cossacks at the cathedral.
His presence is especially moving given that poor relations that existed between ROCOR and the Archdiocese throughout the 20th century.
Abp. Michael was himself born in Paris in 1943 to a Don Cossack family. He became a bishop of ROCOR in 1996, initially serving in Toronto, later in Boston, and finally in Geneva and Western Europe. He was elevated to the rank of Archbishop in 2011.
