Photo credit: Flickr / Kristina Savic
More than 58 percent of the delegates (104 people) of the General Assembly of the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe supported the accession to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, RIA Novosti reports. Almost 42 percent of those present (75 people) voted against it.
Despite the majority opinion, the decision to join the ROC has not yet been made. As Protodeacon John Drobot explained, this requires the support of two-thirds of the assembly members. Now the clergy will face numerous consultations and discussions about the future of the “Russian exarchate.”
Russkiy Mir reported that the center of the West European exarchate of Russian parishes was located in Paris. The archbishopric includes parishes created by Russian emigrants of the first wave. They were forced to leave Russia after the October Revolution. Up till now, the exarchate has sixty-five parishes, more than thirty communities, about a dozen churches, two monasteries and seven hermitages.
The question of joining Russian parishes to the Russian Orthodox Church was the only one that was brought up for discussion by the assembly on September 7th. Earlier it was reported about the decision of Constantinople to withdraw from the patriarchate of Archbishop John of Hariupol and transfer the Russian parishes in France to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul. In the fall of 2018, the Patriarchate of Constantinople announced the dissolution of the West European exarchate of Russian parishes.
Russkiy Mir
