CANNES, FRANCE: March 10, 2016
For the Sake of Peace and Truth: Cannes’ Archangel Michael Church Then and Now

A brief history of Archangel Michael Church in Cannes, France, and its present situation was posted on the website of the successors of the parish which had prayed at the church for over 90 years. The Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is taking steps, in concord with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Russian Orthodox Church, to confirm the canonical ownership of the church and its jurisdiction under the authority of the First Hierarch of ROCOR:

On February 25, 2016, the periodical Nice Matin published an article on the Russian Orthodox Church of Archangel Michael in Cannes, France. It includes notions that might introduce confusion and enmity among the residents of and visitors to the Cote d’Azur region. For this reason, some clarification based on documentary evidence has become necessary regarding the church in for the sake of peace and truth.

Archangel Michael Church, located on boulevard Alexandre III in Cannes, was built in 1894 on private donations, and three years later, a four-story house for clergymen was built on the site. With the approval of Emperor Nicholas II, all parish property and buildings were received as the property of and under the auspices of the Holy Synod on November 3, 1897, that is, it became the property of the Russian Empire.

In 1923, the sous-prefecture of the city of Grasse registered a religious association (association cultuelle) as administrators of the church. The church was under canonical authority of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which was headquartered at the time in Serbia, which is evidenced by a letter by the parish warden, Baron de Clodt addressed to the mayor of Cannes on August 2, 1930:

“The Association is subject, and spiritually so, to the Council of Russian Bishops headquartered in Serbia” (“L'Association obéit, quant au spirituel, au Concile des Évêques Russes, ayant son siège en Serbie.”).

This historical attestation is available on the website of the Cannes Municipal Archives, and deserves attention due to its ramifications. Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky), who headed the Russian parishes in France after the October Revolution, in his memoirs Put’ mojej zhizni [The Path of My Life], writes that he had a break with the Russian Synod in Serbia as early as 1926. So after the Russian parishes of France left the subjugation to the Synod, following the establishment of the independent Russian ecclesiastical structure of Archangel Michael Church in Cannes, it preserved as before its canonical bond with the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad, which it continues to maintain for over 90 years.

In 1982, a notary public in Nice attested to the ownership of the church property by the religious association (strange how a group of people can be the legal heir to the Russian Empire!). Before then, in 1943 and 1970, the registration changed the ownership of the parish property from the Holy Synod of Russia to the religious association with a mere stroke of the pen.

In 2007, there was a legal conflict between Bishop Varnava (Prokofiev) of Cannes and his assistant, Hieromonk Seraphim (Baranchikov) on one side and a group of former parishioners on the other (Nice Matin of October 21 and November 28, 2010, by Matilde Tranoy).

On 2009, new clergymen from Russia and Australia began to minister to the parish: Priest Maksim Massalitine, Priest Antony Odaysky and Protopriest Michael Boikov. Varnava and Seraphim were removed, and later defrocked. Normal parish life resumed, and attracted significant private donations in the hundreds of thousands of euros, and renovation work was begun: the cupolas were restored and gilded, the parish house and summer kitchen were renovated, the Russian chapel in Abadi Cemetery was restored. Also planned was the waterproofing of the church.

However, in 2013, a judge ruled that possession of the church was to be handed over to a group of former parishioners (members of the association who were in conflict with Varnava and Seraphim were restored), who decided to join a non-canonical religious organization based in Ukraine. That is why we, the clergymen and all the parishioners of Archangel Michael Church, were forced to leave our home church and rent the Church of Saint-Roch in the center of Cannes to celebrate divine services. Restoration of Archangel Michael Church was halted, the clergymen and their families were driven out of their apartments in the parish house, which was turned into a hotel named Villa Saint Michel, advertised online: (http://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/villa-saint-michel.fr.html).

Although the new administrators of the church are employing their business acumen at the parish, the church itself continued to decay, even as they pondered their jurisdictional question and developed their hotel concern. Fortunately, in the summer of 2014, by decision of a general assembly of the association, the church returned to canonical Orthodoxy, and they submitted to the Constantinople Patriarchate in Turkey. On the evening of July 27, 2015, the substructure of the cupola gave way, and the cupola took a dangerous tilt downward (this happened immediately following the hasty “barricading” of the property to prevent a visit by the 13th-century Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign," and on September 5, the cupola itself fell on top of the right-hand entrance. The municipality was forced to shut down the church and surrounding territory.

Russia never forgot about its splendid spiritual legacy in Cannes, and as the lawful heir to the Russian Empire, the erstwhile owner of the church, received the right to the property of Archangel Michael Church from France. On October 2, 2014, notary public Léon Hugounenc in Nice, in response to a claim filed by Russian Ambassador Alexander Orlov, on the basis of undeniable judicial and historical documents, registered an act of correction (acte rectificatif) for the full ownership by the Russian Federation of the parish property and buildings located at 3-40, boulevard Alexandre III in Cannes: “Unjustly and erroneously, the rights to the property and buildings are owned by the Russian religious Orthodox Association of Holy Archangel Michael, when in fact in reality the aforementioned property belongs to the state of the Russian Federation.”

Now the Orthodox Christians of Cannes—Russians and Ukrainians, Frenchmen and Romanians, Belarussians and Americans and many others—are eagerly awaiting the return of Archangel Michael Church to Russian ownership. Their hopes were bolstered by the words of Ambassador Orlov spoken on January 19, 2016, during the official opening of St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Nice after its complete renovation: Now there are other churches, other holy sites for all Russians living in France which were returned to the Russian Orthodox Church: I am speaking of Caucade Cemetery, I refer to the church in Cannes which is in terrible condition. The restoration of this cathedral is but the beginning of the restoration of all of Russia’s properties in Cote d’Azur.”

May God grant this!
Priest Antony Odaysky,
Representative of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad in Cannes, Rector of Archangel Michael Parish Community.

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