Legal Wrangle Over St Nicholas Cathedral in Nice Finally Over

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On Wednesday, Xenia and Nikita Krivoshein, acting as spokesmen for the Russian émigré community in France, told Interfax-Religion that the Russian government finally ended its legal battle concerning the property of St Nicholas Cathedral in Nice, stating, “On 10 April 2013, the Court of Cassation, the highest legal organ of the French Republic, announced that it completely rejected the complaint of the Russian Orthodox Religious Association (ACOR) of Nice (which claimed the cathedral: Interfax)”. Thus, the court ruled that the Russian state is now unequivocally the legal owner of St Nicholas Cathedral in Nice, “the law and simple good-sense prevailed over sectarianism and denial of reality”.

In 1923, ACOR leased the church for 99 years, and, in 1931, it passed into the jurisdiction of the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople). On 19 May 2011, a French court confirmed that the Russian state had legal ownership of the church property in Nice. Then, the Russian government decided to hand over the property to MP Diocese of Korsun for its free and unlimited use. However, the Council of the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe continued to consider itself the lawful possessor of the cathedral. In December 2011, Sergei Bolkhovitin, a mid-level official of the Russian Presidential Administration, handed over the keys of the cathedral in Nice to its new rector, Archpriest Nikolai Ozolin.

Today’s decision by the Court of Cassation in France marks the end of the long litigation over the legal ownership of the Russian cathedral in Nice. Now, members of the Russian émigré community hope that the Russian government will move on its claim to other major church buildings erected in Europe by the Russian Empire. Nikita Krivoshein noted, “Most of them are in poor condition and falling apart due to the poor maintenance done by their present temporary users. One can only hope that the decision concerning Nice will serve as a precedent for the resolution of similar situations in Paris, Biarritz, and other cities”. He emphasised that this year’s Holy Week services “at the Russian cathedral in Nice won’t be overshadowed by any external factors”.

St Nicholas Cathedral is one of the most visited historical attractions on the Côte d’Azur. Built in the early 20th century, the French state added it to its list of protected architectural monuments in 1987. Beginning of restoration work on the building will begin this year, financed by the Russian state and private sponsors. At present, it’s anticipated that the work will take two years to complete.

10 April 2013

Interfax-Religion

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50771

Editor’s Note:

When the Parisian modernists lost the court battle over St Nick’s, it was their death sentence. The funds raised from entrance fees to the church were the backbone of the Parisian budget. Frankly, the Phanar may give the Exarchate parishes a choice… go under Moscow, go under the Greek bishop for their area, or go vagante. Remember, the Phanar rejected all the proposed successors to Gabriel de Vylder. In short, even the EP sees that the Parisian Russians are a bad bet, a rum lot, and “dead men walking”.

SVS kissed the arse of the Parisians since the time of the Schmemann–Meyendorff duopoly. Now, there are noises that SVS wants to go EP if the OCA goes under. If they do, they won’t have the independence that they’ve enjoyed up to now (let’s be frank… ADS & Co took advantage of the spineless-jellyfish poofter weakling Feodosy). The Phanar would make them toe the EP party-line unreservedly and without complaint, and that’s that. Just sayin’… do pass the popcorn, the show isn’t completely over, yet… Rue Daru IS next, after all…

BMD

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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin Speaks on Berezovsky and Prokhorov… Regrets Towards the First… Opposition to the Second…

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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, speaking on air at the studio of the Higher School of Trading, regretted that Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who recently died in England, didn’t have the opportunity to start his life with a clean slate, despite all his talent, saying , “He was a pathetic person. He seemed to be a smart, talented, and energetic man, with an eventful life. However, his life wasn’t in order, but he didn’t realise that until it was too late for him to start a new life”. According to Fr Vsevolod, anyone can start life with a fresh start, but in the case of Berezovsky, he didn’t have the inclination to do so, noting, “God forbid that we should become so. Unfortunately, everyone has temptations, even if we don’t have billions and political influence”. In re ethics, Fr Vsevolod observed that ethics “isn’t only a social mechanism, handy for building interpersonal relationships, but it has eternal pros and cons that don’t change with the winds of fashion; they’re independent of our ideas about them, and they operate even if we’re heedless of them. It’s very important for people to remember these things today; it wasn’t just something that affected a well-known politician and oligarch who recently died under mysterious circumstances in the UK“.

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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, speaking on air at the studio of the Higher School of Trading, criticised oligarch and politician Mikhail Prokhorov, who recently offered his religious ideas for public discussion, saying, “Recently, Mr Prokhorov said the following, ‘How can religious groups claim to speak directly to the public on moral issues? How can they have the nerve to do such?’”. Fr Vsevolod added, “Now, that’s mind-boggling logic… he can speak on such, but we may not. Well! Hold your horses, we thought that we had the same rights under the law that Mr Prokhorov does; we all have the right to address people directly. We don’t need intermediaries, especially, not some oligarch, who probably wants to make themselves such an intermediary, in order to offer a new social contract, a new ideology of their own making”.

Fr Vsevolod thought that Prokhorov’s attempt to deny religious communities the right to speak directly to the public on moral issues “wasn’t just a totalitarian idea, it’s nothing but Nazism, being nothing but a real attempt to deprive a social group of the right to publicly express its worldview. That’s nothing but Hitler and Stalin’s ideology. Obviously, the whole problem with this man’s agenda is the fact that he once said that it isn’t based in morals. We’ll speak out… we’ll always speak out. If he commits immoral acts, he should know the truth of it, he should know the truth concerning such; he has to know what’s true and what’s evil”. Fr Vsevolod observed, “Prokhorov can’t run away from the fact that he told the truth about himself, about his personal life, his business, his views, and his beliefs. You can never attend to those who want the Church to commit spiritual suicide; we can never abandon the raison d’être of the Church, which is to preach the Truth of Christ to all the peoples of the world. We’re not buying his ideas”.

Fr Vsevolod commented on a statement by TV presenter Vladimir Pozner that the greatest tragedy in Russian history was the adoption of Orthodoxy, stating, “I’ve travelled to 70 countries; so, I know life in the ‘successful’ countries of Northern and Western Europe, which Mr Pozner obviously wants us to imitate. Generally, people are much more miserable there than in Russia. By and large, ordinary people are much happier than the rich are. That’s an amazing thing, but it’s so”.

10 April 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50763

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50766

Editor’s Note:

I’d note this from the first excerpt:

[Ethics] isn’t only a social mechanism, handy for building interpersonal relationships, but it has eternal pros and cons that don’t change with the winds of fashion; they’re independent of our ideas about them, and they operate even if we’re heedless of them.

I’d only add that American businessmen who defraud workers of their honest wages and slash benefits to their workers to ensure higher profits fall under this rubric. Don’t forget that Scripture says, “The love of money is the root of ALL evil”… but the Western right says, “Greed is Good”. They do appear contradictory, do they not? That means that no Orthodox Christian can support the amoral money-worshipping platforms of the US Republican Party, the British and Canadian Conservative Parties, or the Australian Liberal Party. Full stop.

Note this from the second extract:

I’ve travelled to 70 countries; so, I know life in the “successful” countries of Northern and Western Europe, which Mr Pozner obviously wants us to imitate. Generally, people are much more miserable there than in Russia. By and large, ordinary people are much happier than the rich are. That’s an amazing thing, but it’s so.

And this:

[We] all have the right to address people directly. We don’t need intermediaries, especially, not some oligarch, who probably wants to make themselves such an intermediary, in order to offer a new social contract, a new ideology of their own making.

I’d simply say that there are Orthodox clergy who bow before the voracious and rapacious Moloch of Western crapitalism… we all know who they are. They’ve sold out for a mess of pottage (usually, for a house in the “right” suburb)… and, then, they have the goddamn gall to paint themselves out as moral paragons. Oh, yes… they attack Iosif Stalin, and they bloviate about Sergianism. Hmm… they DID take Langley’s shilling, didn’t they? That makes THEM worse “Sergianists” than anyone in the former USSR was… fancy that.

Methinks that the pot is blacker than the kettle is… just sayin’…

BMD