On the Situation Around the Russian Church in Biarriz
Statement of the Communication Service of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations

The city court in Bayonne, France, settled on December 12, 2005, the lawsuit filed by a small group of parishioners of the church of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God and St. Alexander Nevsky in Biarriz by annulling the earlier decision of the parish meeting to reunite with the Russian Orthodox Church. On January 25, 2006, the city court of Pau let the immediate execution of the court decision stand in spite of the fact that the appeal filed by the parish has not been considered yet.

A year ago, on December 26, 2004, the parish meeting of the church in Biarriz led by its rector, Archpriest Georges Monjoch, resolved by a majority of votes to ask the Moscow Patriarchate for its reunification with the Mother Church. A minority of the parish members and the leaders of the exarchate of the Russian parishes in Western Europe, which is in the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, did not accept the decision of the parishioners. Archbishop Gabriel of Comana assigned a new rector to the parish and filed a lawsuit over the legitimacy of the choice made by the parish meeting. The court granted the declaration, referring to some procedural violations made in preparing the meeting of the association.

Without invading the field of competence of the French justice, it should be underlined that the court did not refute the indubitable fact that most of the parishioners repeatedly reconfirmed their desire to be reunited with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Many circumstances revealed in the court show that the case was carried to a political plane as allegations were made that it was a common action of the Russian Government and the Russian Church to seize property that stood behind the parishioners’ decision.

Therefore, it was a politicized atmosphere and formal grounds alone that influenced the decision to reject the parishioners’ authentic aspirations consonant with the canonical truth. For it should not be forgotten that the Russian church in Biarriz was torn away from the Moscow Patriarchate only temporarily, when, following in the steps of Metropolitan Yevlogy (Georgiyevsy), it stopped its subordination to the Russian Church in 1931. The forced separation effected without the appropriate canonical release and the acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople were only conditional until the restoration of unity with the Mother Church. This is what Metropolitan Yevlogy himself declared in 1931, saying, ‘It is not a rupture with the Russian Church, but only a temporary interruption in official administrative relations caused by certain circumstances of the present-day life’.

With regard to the reports circulated by the leaders of the exarchate in the Constantinople’s jurisdiction concerning the defrocking of Archpriest Georges Monjoch, the Communication Service is authorized to state the following. A notice to this effect was sent to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia by His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in spring 2005. Since Archpriest Georges Monjoch is a cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church in which he was ordained, a request was sent to Constantinople to present the church court proceedings on the basis of which the above-mentioned action was taken. No response to this request followed. Therefore, the Russian Orthodox Church cannot consider this action of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to be canonically valid.

As a remainder, on December 24, 2004, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved that ‘the canonical bans be considered unjustified and invalid if imposed on clergy only for their openly-confessed desire to follow the policy of the Most Reverend Metropolitan Yevlogy, who declared his intention to return to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church as soon as the normal conditions for her life are restored and who proved the truth of his words.