Orthodox Church of France

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The Orthodox Church of France is an organization in France that follows Western Rite Orthodoxy.^[1] Though the Orthodox Church of France has been in communion with various canonical Orthodox Churches (including most recently the Serbian Orthodox Church), the majority of Western Rite French Orthodox are not in communion with any canonical Orthodox church.

[edit] Foundation

In 1937, the Russian Orthodox Church received a small group under Louis-Charles (Irénée) Winnaert (1880-1937), under the name l'Eglise Orthodoxe Occidentale (Western Orthodox Church). Winnaert's work was continued, with occasional conflict, by Jean-Nectaire (Kovalevsky) of Saint-Denis (1905-1970) and Denis (Chambault), the latter overseeing a small Orthodox Benedictine community in the rue d'Alleray in Paris. After 1946, Kovalevsky began to restore the Gallican usage based on the letters of Saint Germanus, a 6th-century Bishop of Paris, as well as numerous early Western missals, and sacramentaries and with a few Byzantine modifications, developing what would become the Divine Liturgy according to St Germanus of Paris.

Archimandrite Alexis van der Mensbrugghe was also associated with the Kovalevsky group, desiring the restoration of the ancient Roman rite, replacing medieval accretions with Gallican and Byzantine interpolations, though Alexis remained separate from the EOCF. Father Alexis was eventually consecrated a bishop of the Church of Russia episcopacy in 1960, continuing his Western Rite work under the auspices of the Moscow Patriarchate.

[edit] Relations with other Orthodox groups

After some years of isolation, Kovalevsky's group came under the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia between 1959 and 1966, with Kovalevsky consecrated in 1964 as Bishop Jean-Nectaire (Kovalevsky) of Saint-Denis and receiving considerable encouragement from St. John (Maximovitch) (the ROCOR's representative in Western Europe at the time). John Maximovitch’s death in 1966 was a serious blow to the Western Orthodox Christians in France.

While Moscow's Western Rite mission withered and ended, Bishop Jean's church continued to thrive, however, without canonical protection after St. John's repose. Bishop Jean reposed in 1970 but in 1972 the church found a new canonical superior in the Church of Romania. Gilles Bertrand-Hardy was then consecrated as Bishop Germain (Bertrand-Hardy) of Saint-Denis. In 1993, after long conflict with the Romanian Synod regarding canonical irregularities, the latter withdrew its blessing of the French church and broke communion with ECOF. The Romanian Orthodox Church took the decision, which is contested by ECOF, to depose Bishop Germain from all sacerdotal functions. This decision (which was never accepted by ECOF) is applied by the canonical dioceses of the AEOF (Assemblée des Evêques Orthodoxes de France). The sanction was confirmed and explained in 2001 by another document, "Avis d'expertise canonique", from the Secretary of the Romanian Synod (a document which the ECOF considers to have no value). The Romanian patriarchate established a deanery under Bishop Germain's brother, Archpriest Gregoire Bertrand-Hardy, to minister to those parishes which chose to stay with the Romanian patriarchate.

In 2001, after the scandal caused by the revelation inside the church of the marriage of Bishop Germain in 1995 (though it is unclear if a legal separation later occurred), ten parishes left the ECOF and formed the Union des Associations Cultuelles Orthodoxes de Rite Occidental (UACORO - the Union of Western Rite Orthodox Worship Associations) and began negotiations in 2004 with the Church of Serbia to be canonically recognized, with the intention of the UACORO entering the Diocese of France and Western Europe. The UACORO was received individually, laity and priests, into the French diocese of the Serbian patriarchate in 2006.