Archangel Michael Church (Cannes)

For a long time, the only Russian church in the French Riviera was the church of Saints Nicholas and Alexandra in Nice .

This inconvenience prompted Russian immigrants in 1886 to build the first church in Cannes. It was a house church in the villa of Alexandra Feodorovna Tripe, nee Skripitsyna , in which services were occasionally held in the care of the clergy from Nice.

In 1889, with the arrival of Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna in Cannes, divine services in this church became more regular due to the clergy who came with her from Schwerin .

The small building of the house church was unable to accommodate everyone who wanted to pray. In view of this, the confessor of Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna Archpriest Grigory Ostroumov in 1893 turned to Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich who lived in Cannes with a request for assistance in building a new, more extensive church.

Under the chairmanship of the Grand Duke, a construction committee was drawn up, some members of which, in addition to the donations they had already made for the construction of the temple, pledged to make 250 francs each year for its maintenance. A. F. Tripe offered a gift for a church plot of land in 1750 m².

The laying of the church in the name of the Holy Archangel Michael of God with a capacity of 400 people was made with the blessing of the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Palladium on April 23 ( May 5 ), 1894 , and its consecration - November 22 ( December 4 ) of the same year. After the consecration of the temple, the Municipality of Cannes announced its decision to rename the street on which the church was built into Alexander III Boulevard ( French boulevard Alexandre III ).

The church received significant donations from members of the Imperial Family. So, the Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich sacrificed sacred vessels , the altar cross , the Gospel and the silver censer . Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich donated a metal church fence. Prince S. M. Golitsyn - on the head of the temple openwork cross and two ancient Italian painting set icons: the Savior and the Mother of God . Among the relics of the church, the ark with the relics of John of Kronstadt , Seraphim of Sarov and Simeon of Verkhotursky are significant.

During World War I, the parish of the church assisted wounded soldiers and officers of the Expeditionary Force of the Russian Army in France , who were undergoing treatment at Cannes Support Hospital No. 203. Many of them were buried in the city cemetery of Gran Jas , where Russian and Serbian soldiers were erected over the common grave the majestic marble cross ^[1] .

In 1921, the wedding of the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich with the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya took place in the church.

In the interwar period, the Russian colony was larger than ever before. The parish of the Cannes Temple participated in the organization of the camps of the National Organization of the Knights in the Cannes Golf Club.

In the post-war period, the community of the Cannes church experienced a revival during the reign of priest Igor Dulgov , who continued to engage in youth, served in the Russian Nursing Home, took care of spiritual education, including through the publication of a parish leaflet. At that time, the icon-painting workshop of Tsevchinsky was operating at the temple , who painted a number of icons for the temple and painted the entrance of the temple under the bell tower ^[2] . The parish was also engaged in visual arts by Catholic artist , who was ordained a priest named Patrick.

The Russian community at the Canny necropolis of Abadi erected the Assumption Chapel - a ossuary to preserve the remains of Orthodox Christians buried in the cemeteries of Gran Jas and Abadi (until 1998, 345 people were transferred to the chapel according to funeral lists) ^[3] .

On the occasion of its centenary in 1994, the Cannes Church was restored with the participation of the authorities of the city and the department .

The city of Cannes closed the temple on August 4, 2015 due to the threat of a fall of the bell tower dome, the nearby territory is fenced, access to the temple is prohibited. On the morning of September 5, the dome fell on the roof of the right narthex.

In 1924, Prince Peter of Oldenburg was buried in the crypt of the temple.

In 1929 and 1931, the Grand Dukes Nikolai Nikolayevich (the younger) and Peter Nikolayevich were buried there. Next to them are their spouses Anastasia and Militsa Montenegrin.

In 2014, Nikolai Nikolayevich’s grand-nephews, Princes Nikolai Romanovich and Dimitri Romanovich, turned to the Russian government with a request to rebury the remains of the Grand Duke and his wife in Russia. The idea of ​​reburial was supported by the Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Sergey Naryshkin ^[4] . The ashes of the Grand Duke and his wife were exhumed on April 24, 2015, after which the remains were transferred to new coffins and a memorial service was conducted by the Archbishop of Geneva and Western Europe, Mikhail (Donskov) . Then the remains of the cars were delivered to Paris , where an ecumenical prayer with the participation of French and Russian officials was held in the basilica of the House of Disabled . The reburial of the remains of Nikolai Nikolaevich and his wife Anastasia Nikolaevna took place on April 30, 2015 in Moscow , in the chapel in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord at the Bratsk military cemetery ^[5] .

In the crypt of the temple there are burial places of the brother of Nikolai Nikolaevich Grand Duke Pyotr Nikolaevich and his wife Militsa Nikolaevna. It is assumed that their remains will be reburied in the Crimea ^[6] .

Other burials ^[7] :

• the graves of Elena Vagliano (1909-1944), the heroine of the French Resistance movement , as well as members of her family, parishioners and church worshipers ^[8] ;
• the grave of the first abbot of the church - Archbishop Gregory (Ostroumov) and his wife;
• a number of memorial tablets, including in memory of Archpriest Nikolai Sobolev, the second rector of the church.

The Church of Michael the Archangel in Cannes has repeatedly become the subject of jurisdictional disputes, which has largely contributed to the liberal French legislation on , which are managed by most Orthodox churches in France.

In 1929, a significant part of the parish, led by Archpriest Grigory Ostroumov, left the subordination to Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgievsky) and transferred to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) ( ROCOR ). Metropolitan Eulogius left the administration of the loyal part of the parish for the rector appointed in 1927, the nephew of Archpriest Gregory Priest Alexy Seleznev , who continued to live in the house of the clergy of St. Michael the Archangel, divided between two jurisdictions. Priest Alexy became the founder of a temporary church in honor of St. Tikhon of Zadonsky in the suburbs of Cannes - ^[9] .

In the fall of 1945, following the example of Metropolitan Serafim (Lukyanov) , the head of the ROCA parishes in Western Europe , the Cannes church and its many-year-old rector Bishop Grigory (Ostroumov) passed under the omophorion of Patriarch of Moscow Alexy I (the latter honored Bishop Gregory as archbishop ). Archpriest Alexy Seleznev did the same, following Metropolitan Eulogius.

However, after the death of Archbishop Gregory, the Cannes parish again split up: on February 22, 1948, the parish association with its new rector Archpriest Nikolai Sobolev (archbishop's son-in-law) voted to return Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky) to the ROCOR jurisdiction ^[10] . Archpriest Alexy followed Archbishop Vladimir (Tikhonitsky) who ordained him.

The parish community and the church were under the jurisdiction of the ROCOR, when in 2001 the last was shocked by the schism and bishop of Cannes Barnabas (Prokofiev) , the vicar of the Western European diocese , together with Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) , who was retired by the first hierarch of the ROCOR , formed a parallel jurisdiction called the "Russian Orthodox Church in Exile", abbreviated ROCOR (B) . The Council of Bishops of the ROCOR deprived Bishop Barnabas of the holy dignity. This, however, did not stop him. The temple survived a series of jurisdictions that ravaged it, accompanied by scandalous publications in the Russian and French press.

In May 2002, the parish association of the Cannes temple, following its rector, voted to transfer to the jurisdiction of the non-canonical ROCOR (B) ^[11] , and Barnava (Prokofiev) in the schism became known as the “Archbishop of Cannes and Europe.” After Barnabas returned from schism in 2006, the church was run by the ROCA. However, the activities of Barnabas in the split and after returning from it led to the initiation of a number of lawsuits against him ^[12] .

On May 22, 2014, at the general meeting of the association, Archpriest Vladimir Jagello ^{[13] [14]} , the long-term abbot of the Sign Church in Paris, was elected rector of the Cannes church. Archbishop Job (Getcha) , the administrator of the Archbishopric of Orthodox Russian churches in Western Europe ( Patriarchate of Constantinople ), issued a decree on the admission of the Cannes parish in his jurisdiction. On the official site of the Archdiocese, the parish was included in the list of parishes of the deanery of the South-East of France ^[15] .

• Archpriest Grigory Ostroumov , later Archbishop of Cannes and Marseille (1895-1927, in the ROCOR 1929-1945, in the Moscow Patriarchate from the autumn of 1945 until his death in 1947)
• Archpriest Alexy Seleznev (in the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Russian churches in Western Europe , 1927-1945) ^[16]
• Archpriest Nikolai Sobolev (1947-1963), transferred from the Moscow Patriarchate to the jurisdiction of the ROCA in February 1948
• Archpriest Igor Dulgov (1963-1987?), later Archbishop of Brussels and Western Europe Seraphim († November 24, 2003)
• Archpriest Sergiy Chertkov (1985-1988)
• Bishop of Barnabas (Prokofiev) (1988-2009), from 2001 to 2006 in the jurisdiction of the ROCOR (B)
• Priest Maxim Massalitin (November 5, 2009 - May 8, 2011)
• Archpriest Mikhail Boykov (May 8, 2011 - February 2, 2012)
• Bishop of Barnabas (Prokofiev) (from February 2012 - July 17, 2013)
• Hieromonk Damaskin (Dmitry Shansherov) (September 9, 2013 - May 2014)
• Archpriest Vladimir Jagello ^[13] (appointed rector of the church in May 2014).

• Parish photo album (2009—2011 year)
• Paroisse Saint-Michel Archange on the website of the Western European Archbishopric

• Booklet published for the 100th anniversary of the Archangel Michael’s Church in Cannes. - Cannes, 1994.
• Cote d'Azur // Historical and artistic guide. - Monaco, 2000.
• Les villas de la colonie russe // Demeures anciennes et beaux jardins. - Cannes: Archives Communales, 2005. - P. 42-66. - 238 p. - ISBN 978-2952074544 .