Deanery

This is a reminder that the Extraordinary General Assembly has been convened in response to the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to change the status of the Archdiocese, that is to say, to withdraw its title of Patriarchal Exarchate. It is certainly the responsibility of the Patriarchate to grant or not the status of Exarchate to our Archdiocese; on the other hand, it is the responsibility of the Archdiocese and, in this case, of its sovereign statutory body, the EGA, to decide on its dissolution.

This act revokes the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of 1999, and arranges the illegal plundering of the parishes and of all the institutions of the Archdiocese by the Greek Metropolitans of Western Europe.

Our parishes, forming part of the GOVERNING UNION OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX ASSOCIATIONS in Western Europe, have a duty themselves following the meeting of the General Assembly on 23 February 2019 to determine according to the statutes the canonical continuity to provide for the future of the Archdiocese.

Your All-Holiness,

In recent days, many priests and deacons of the Archdiocese have received a letter from the Greek Metropolitan of the country where they reside, ordering them to cease commemorating their own Archbishop, to join the clergy of the Greek Metropolia, to consider that our parishes and communities are already part of these Metropolia and finally ordering them to hand over all relevant parish documents and records.

In this regard, the Council of the Archdiocese refers to its communiqué of 30 November and offers some clarifications.

The Holy and Sacred Synod convened under the chairmanship of His All-Holiness for its regular sessions from Tuesday, November 27, to Thursday, November 29, 2018.

Following the Pastoral Assembly held on 15th December at the Church of St Sergius, in which nearly all the clergy of the Archdiocese took part, His Eminence Archbishop John of Charioupolis, ruling Archbishop of the Orthodox Churches of Russian Tradition in Western Europe, in consultation with the Council of the Archdiocese which met immediately after the Pastoral Assembly, has convened an Extraordinary General Assembly of the Diocesan Governing Union of Russian Orthodox Associations in Western Europe, of which he is the President.

You are reminded that the Pastoral Assembly which is to meet on Saturday 15 December 2018, with the participation of members of the clergy and to which the lay members of the Archdiocesan Council are invited, does not constitute a statutory decision-making body regarding the future of the Archdiocese. It is an occasion for consultation and communion by His Eminence the Archbishop in charge with his clergy, indispensable for the exercise of the episcopal ministry.

The Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe, which is one of the oldest Orthodox ecclesiastical entities in our regions, had been placed under the pastoral responsibility of Metropolitan Evloghiy (Guéorguievski) by Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, by decree of 8th April 1921. Thrown onto the paths of exile by the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian émigrés established, with faith and courage, an ecclesiastical presence based on the main principles of the unfulfilled Council of Moscow of 1917-1918.

A Pastoral message of Archbishop John of Charioupolis, Exarch of His All-holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has been published on the Archdiocese website. Click here view the pdf document. 

The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in its session of November 27, 2018, decided to revoke the patriarchal Tomos of 1999 by which it granted the pastoral care and administration of Orthodox parishes of Russian tradition in Western Europe to its archbishop-exarch.

This decision answers the pastoral and spiritual needs of our time, with the greatest respect for canon law and our spiritual responsibility.