ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

The Situation of the Parish in Lyon

A translation from the website of the Archdiocese of an article by Father André Fortounatto and Deacon Richard Vaux. Website of the parish: http://www.paroisse-sts-alexismarie.fr/; original article in French here

Certain sources referred at the end of 2007 to the transfer of this parish to the Korsun Diocese of the Patriarchate of Moscow. It has been said that the transfer took place ‘calmly’ and that this ‘might mark a significant turning pointing the sad conflict that is tearing apart the community of Orthodox of Russian tradition in France.’ It seems right, however, to point out that what happened in Lyon was a ‘split’ in the ecclesial body that constituted the Russian Orthodox community there.

An historical overview

Metropolitan Evlogii assigned Father Mishin to the Lyon region in 1923, and he celebrated for the first time at Pont-de-Chéruy, in a small room decorated with a few icons. Then on 11 October 1924 the ‘Association Orthodoxe Russe de Lyon’ was registered at the town hall and the Parish of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God was created.

Right from the start the parish became a welcoming place to gather for the Russian families that arrived in Lyon. After the services the Russians would often meet together; they would organise picnics on the banks of the Saone. Each year a cultural event was organised in a hall rented for this purpose.
The Second World War scattered a large proportion of these families, who were out of work. Because life became very difficult for these émigrés and they moved away, searching for employment. Many were sent to labour camps in Germany. Others, naturalised French citizens, served in the French Army.

At the end of the war, Father Georges Shumkin gathered the young people together to teach them the Orthodox faith and Russian traditions, thereby recreating a cultural life. A summer camp was organised at Chavagny-les-Chevrillere, and children and adolescents went there each year.

However, the number of Russians began to decrease. The first refugees grew old and died and the young people who did form families left the region of Lyon. The community went through difficult times. To begin with, in 1946, the parish followed its rector, Father Georges Shumkin, who decided to return to the Patriarchate of Moscow. Two years later, however, a part of the parish rejoined the Exarchate, which was led at the time by Metropolitan Vladimir, the successor to Metropolitan Evlogii. For a long time it was difficult for them to find a permanent priest. From 1958 to 1962 Father Valentin Bachst was able to give new life to the community. Then, after the death in June 1973 of Father John Postovoi, who replaced Father Valentin, Father John Krasnobaieff served the parish for about four years. He was very old, lived at Vichy, and in the late 1970s, because he could no longer travel, there were no services for almost a year and a half. The parish of the Patriarchate of Moscow, which was also cared for by an elderly priest coming from Vichy, experienced difficulties at the same time and was finally forced to close.

At the beginning of 1980 Father André Fortounatto suggested to Archbishop Georges (Tarassoff) that he should come and celebrate the services for Christmas. For the next twenty-eight years he served the parish of the Archdiocese in Lyon. If the first services attracted only a few people, little by little the parish grew. Families that had stopped attending services returned to the Church and the parish acquired new members. In addition, Father André received a certain number of people into Orthodoxy.

The children of the 1980s grew up, and Father André married them and baptised their children. It very quickly became obvious that it was necessary to introduce an element of French language into the services - to a limited extent, to be sure, since certain parishioners remained attached to Church Slavonic. It had to be done, however, because the children, young people and parishioners of French origin – and even sometimes the Russians themselves – did not understand Slavonic, to say nothing of the members of the choir, who very often could not read it.

The difficulties

Unfortunately, beginning in the late 1990s, dissension grew up in the parish over the question of language (for or against the use of French in the services). This provoked such tension that at the end of 2005 the atmosphere in the parish had become oppressive, and this caused the departure or distancing of some parishioners, in particular young choir members and young couples. The pastoral activity of the Rector was challenged by a group of opponents who sought to change the jurisdictional allegiance of the parish in order to preserve its ‘Russianness’, which they thought was threatened.

In the end they managed to call an Extraordinary General Meeting of the parish in order to change the Statutes of the ‘Association cultuelle’ as regards the jurisdiction to which the parish belonged. A small majority of the Assembly voted in favour of the Parish of the Protection of the Mother of God moving to the Patriarchate of Moscow (21 for, 19 against and 1 abstention at the first meeting; 23 for, 15 against and 1 abstention at the second and definitive vote). This all took place in a perfectly legal manner. It did not take place in a Church manner, however, with certain individuals taking part in the voting even though they almost never came to church and did not take part in the sacramental life of the parish.
Our purpose here is not to comment on the great moral, ethical and relational difficulties that, in this context, were the lot of those who did not wish to leave the Archdiocese, or who thought that the way things were done was not correct. In any event, the move of the ‘Association cultuelle’ to the Patriarchate of Moscow confirmed de facto the ‘split’ in the ecclesial body.

In December 2007, at the first Liturgy celebrated by Father André in a room made available by the Catholic diocese of Lyon, there were forty-six people present who came from the Parish of the Protection of the Mother of God (only five had not been part of the parish). These people all wished to keep the connection of their ecclesial community with the Archdiocese and to maintain continuity with its history, its mission and its vision. Having lost the legal framework of the original ‘Association cultuelle’ to which they had belonged, these faithful have regrouped themselves to create a new parish dedicated to Saint Alexis of Ugine and Saint Mary of Paris. This parish now lives in historical continuity with the community in Lyon as it has developed since 1924.

Father André Fortounatto
Deacon Richard Vaux