Section 04: Western Europe

St. John’s eleven years as Archbishop of Western Europe (1951–1962), see in Paris and then Brussels: the scattered Russian Church Abroad flock across France, Belgium, and the Netherlands; the local-language communities he took under his omophorion — the Dutch parishes and The Hague monastery, and the Orthodox Church of France with its Gallican rite; the Liturgy in Dutch and French; the asceticism that led a Paris Catholic priest to call him a living saint who walks the streets barefoot; and his restoration of the veneration of the pre-schism Western saints.

Tradition: ROCOR (glorified 1994; Moscow Patriarchate veneration affirmed 2008)

Section Contents

• Paris and Brussels — the archdiocese (1951–1962); the scattered flock and constant travel; the Liturgy in Dutch and French; the Dutch parishes and the 1954 Hague monastery received from Benedictine monks under Abbot Adrian Akkersdijk; his oversight of the Orthodox Church of France and its Gallican rite (the 1959 Synodal reception, the consecration of Jean-Nectaire Kovalevsky), with its conditions and reservations; the Paris priest’s “St. Jean Nu-Pieds” remark; and pastoral testimonies.
• Western Saints Restoration — his research into the pre-schism West and the principle that the undivided Church’s Western saints are Orthodox patrimony; the saints documented as his initiatives — St. Genevieve, St. Patrick, St. Alban (his deathbed testament), and the saints of Gaul and Helvetia; the work’s continuation into the ROCOR and 2017 Moscow Patriarchate calendars; and the distinction between venerating Western saints and Western-rite liturgy.

How to Use

• Read Paris and Brussels for the diocesan frame and Western Saints Restoration for the lasting theological legacy of the period.
• The period follows the 1949 exodus of Section 03 — Tubabao and the Exodus and precedes his 1962 transfer to Section 05 — San Francisco.

See Also

• Washington Lobbying — the resettlement labor that immediately preceded the European assignment
• Cathedral Dispute — the controversy that followed his 1962 transfer
• Orthodoxy Guide — Church Calendar — the calendar his Western-saints work touched

References

• Canadian Orthodox History Project. “Saint John (Maximovitch).” orthodoxcanada.ca.
• “On the Western Liturgical Tradition.” rocorstudies.org, June 16, 2013.
• Phillips, Archpriest Andrew. “On the Revival of the Veneration of Local Western Saints in the Orthodox Church.” orthochristian.com/91953.html.
• “A Living Proof of the Burning Faith.” pravmir.com.
• Perekrestov, Archpriest Peter (ed.). Man of God: Saint John of Shanghai & San Francisco. San Francisco: Holy Virgin Cathedral, 1994/2015.