Concerning the comments of the original poster in English.

Firstly, and with all due respect to the author, the absolute degree of rather typical English condescension in the article which I find almost colonialist is rather difficult to endure and I feel obligated, while not being a partisan of Daru at all, to pick his arguments apart.

Firstly, there is the traditional French saying that le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres.

Secondly, as Christians, or even as decent human beings, we should never rejoice when tragedy afflicts another. As a Chinese, I personal subscribe to the theory of karma, of the ying and yang, of the feng shui. While the evil we do to others may not be returned to us from the person or entity to whom we have done evil, it will be returned to us for sure. Such is the nature of the universe. And conversely the same holds true for good.

Next, I myself never had any wonderful dealings with Daru. The years we lived in France and dealt with Daru were hardly positive. That being said, Daru occupied a rather distinguished place in Orthodox time at a certain moment in Orthodox history. All of the original poster's decidedly snide remarks to the contrary cannot obviate that fact. Daru produced a world of world class intellectual theological thinkers whose collective intellectual weight can still be felt in many countries around the world, particularly in North America. That is hardly a negligible fact and no amount of Rule Britannia can lessen this truth.

Thirdly, it is absolutely deeply offensive to me as a person and to me as a Christian the manner in which the author paints all the new adherents to Daru as disgruntled converts and wayward apostates. With all respect to this site, this attitude is 19th century British colonialism at its very worst. Christ did not differentiate between the worthy and the unworthy ... Come unto me all ye who labor, etc. etc.

Fourthly, all emigrations fade over time. That is nothing more or less than the course of history and the rules of nature. If anything, Daru has held on remarkably well for the small entity that it is over these past one hundred years. That it exists in rented parishes and that it is composed of Moldovans in no way diminishes its purpose. Those statements by the original poster are sulfurous at best, demeaning at worst.

In the end, this is just another tempest in a tea pot, albeit a Greek tempest in a French teapot. It is inconceivable that Daru, under these circumstances, will return to Moscow or to the now Moscow run ROCOR.

Frankly, and with all due respect to Mr. Krivosheine and the other editors of this site, before publishing such highly inflammatory and deeply offensive comments as those of the original posters, they may wish to consider a bit of moderation.

Anyone can start a war and anyone can light a fire. Not everyone can maintain peace and not everyone can seek a just solution.

Hai Lin
Montevideo, Uruguay
Wednesday afternoon, 2018.11.27

Je ne sais pas si la fin de l'exarchat de la rue Daru est un avertissement à l'OCA. L'OCA a plutôt réussi, grâce à sa position autonome d'église locale.
Or Daru n'a pas pu suivre cet exemple, car rattachée à Constantinople, qui ne vit que grâce à la diaspora et donc ne voudra jamais d'une église locale vraiment autonome en diaspora (en Occident).
Le problème est donc vraiment ecclésiologique.

@ Théophile

L'OCA fonctionne de façon indépendant, comme église autocéphale quoique non reconnue par tous. Elle ne peut être dissoute.

Les propositions de l'OLTR sont d'une brûlante actualité.

"Frankly, and with all due respect to Mr. Krivosheine and the other editors of this site, before publishing such highly inflammatory and deeply offensive comments as those of the original posters, they may wish to consider a bit of moderation."

Traduction: Franchement, et avec tout le respect que je dois à M. Krivosheine et aux autres éditeurs de ce site, avant de publier des commentaires aussi incendiaires et profondément offensants que ceux des affiches originales, ils souhaiteront peut-être envisager un peu de modération.

Je partage entièrement l'avis de Hai Lin à propos de ce pamphlet haineux qui n'aurait pas du trouver place sur PO.

I do agree with Vladimir ! The text of Andrew Fillips is a disgrace. There is no need to beat up someone who is already on the floor ... we all understand the immense sense of waste and tragedy of the moment!!! The faithful of the late archdiocese deserved much better ... now all that will take place in the weeks to come is on the conscience of each of the diocesan council member ... each of them is well known to everyone and may Lord mercy be upon them !!!

tout a fait d'accord. Le père Andrew déraille une fois de plus. Totalement déplacé et critiquable.

What is real disgrace is to blame a priest who finally said a bitter truth about this strange ecclesiastical deviation. Have you ever seen a Greek who is moching about his country, a Jew who's fighting against Israel? Well, here, in the Archbishopric of Rue Daru you will find people who deeply hate Russia. But still want to have Russians in their parishes. Why? I think you know the answer. The Ecumenical Patriarchate should be praised for giving a chance to this 'uniqe orthodox laicists' to finally be honest with their Russian flock. It has nothing to do anymore with Russian Church and Russian tradition grace to some known personalities in the Archbichopric Council. They had to stop deceiving parishioners with their signboard some 15 years ago. And, yes, why not to try to create their own brand-new church of Russia-haters, of democrates, of freedom-worshippers?

Je partage sur le fond les analyses de Micha et Pokrovsky (je proposerai un article de fond sur ce sujet si j'ai le temps), mais sur la forme j'irai plus loin que "dn": si le p. André "déraille" effectivement depuis longtemps dans de basses polémiques, déjà peu dignes de figurer sur un forum sérieux, là il s'enfonce dans le lamentable ... Je dirait, comme Fyodor, qu'on ne frappe pas un homme à terre ni ne tire sur une ambulance! Un peu de tenue s'il vous plait dans ce moment tragique!

Ce qui est déplaisant dans cet article, c'est le triomphalisme qui s'en dégage.
Or il n'y a pas matière à cela. C'est même complètement déplacé.
Tout d'abord, car c'est un scandale (un de plus) qui souille l'Eglise orthodoxe et non un motif de fierté personnelle.
Ensuite, si cet événement peut sembler renforcer l'Eglise russe en Europe, c'est un leurre.
Cet évènement annonce une concentration du Phanar sur ses actions funestes en Ukraine. Il se libère les mains à Paris pour avoir les coudées franches à Kiev.
Donc à quoi sert de gagner 10 paroisses en France, si le Patriarcat de Moscou perd ses innombrables lieux de cultes en Ukraine?
Prudence, prudence !!! C'est un piège, un gros piège.

Selon mes informations, le conseil de l'Archevêché va se réunir avant ce weekend.

Fr Andrew Philipps is not new in doing such a disgraceful thing. He has been lambasting pretty much anyone who is not Russian for many years. And before talking about the deplorable attacks he makes, I would like to comment on what Pokrovsky says in post 8 : PLEASE stop caring about who hates what country. Maybe it is hard for you to understand that in the current context of Russian politics, but the Church is NOT about what countries you like and what countries you hate. The main reason why Daru has lost so many parishes that it opened at the beginning of the emigration is precisely that it tried to hold on to this grotesque "Russian identity" as an essential part of its Christian identity. Even the personal holiness of saint Alexis of Ugine did not prevent his parish from being closed; and when you remark upon that, people answer you, as though it were perfectly obvious, that "there are no more Russians in Ugine". Really? A saint lives there for decades, and no one ever converts? Here, that is the brilliant result of retaining "Russian identity" instead of doing what it takes to retain your children and bring converts to the church.

And Fr Andrew Philipps can parade his laughable "told you so" all he wants, the one reason there was behind the deep troubles that stirred the Sourozh diocese (which lies in England, just like Charioupolis lies in France, apparently) was the massive influx of Russian nationals who wanted everything to return to Slavonic-speaking services because they couldn't even envision a church where they are not reminded of their home country. Church, apparently, is for not losing touch with the country you left behind, it seems; and this is the sort of reasoning one hears in many different "jurisdictions" today in the "diaspora". Your petty nationalistic tendencies are the main, if not the sole roadblock of the Church in the 21st century, and the IIIrd millenium. Otherwise, history has cleared out our path, everything is prepared for Christ to be announced clearly to all; but proud national Orthodox people prefer to make this about their country and what little secular soft power they can gain in it. Pitiful.

Much in the same way, I have never understood what it is that should make us want to retain the "Archbishopric" the way it is, that is, with this sort of "liberal" "democratic" ring to it. What we ought to have is what the canons establish, that is, one diocese in a given place, and not a confederation of jurisidictions upholding this or that ecclesiology according to personal tendencies. Fr Andrew Philipps has constantly tried to make this about personal choice of who is "worthy" or not, as he so charitably and unjudgementally puts it; on the contrary, the only way the Church can remain free of the risk of schism is to have one bishop to whom the faithful obey personnally, without questioning this or that decision because they know better.

For many years, Fr Andrew Philipps has tried to make everything simple: "belong to Moscow good, belong to someone else bad". He does so with admirable consistency, just like the sheep bleet "four legs good two legs bad" in Animal Farm. I do not know in what version of holy Orthodoxy it is a sign of spiritual health to constantly depict the ones that do not agree with one as spiritually misguided, demon-inspired, or to simply systematically use the choicest words to depcit them, such as "celibate convert rejects". Fr. Andrew Philipps is certainly more knowledgeable than I am, even when he lives in England and certainly has not met Bishop John: he certainly knows better than I do, and I am now convinced that Bishop John chose orthodoxy because he could hide his shame of never having been able to marry. In the meantime, I should like to say that he is among the rare bishops I know who are happy when the organisers of a youth festival tell them that the room they booked for them is small and does not have a private shower booth, because it reminds them of their monastic life. Try that, maybe, with the great and "worthy" champions of Orthodoxy that Fr Andrew Philipps has chosen for himself.

Ever so knowledgeable, Fr Andrew Philipps calls the non-Moldovan parishes in the former-Archbishopric "tiny communities of converts" obsessed with democracy. Again, I am certainly not as smart as he is, but in many French-speaking churches in this jurisdiction, I have seen converts, that is true, often many of them, which is more than can be said about many glorious and dignified Slavonic-speaking churches that belong to Moscow directly or indirectly (what does Fr Andrew Philipps have to say about the fact that the Patriarchate of Moscow recognises the OCA's autocephaly, but still maintains a canonical link with dioceses that ignore the OCA's canonical territory and have parishes all over it?), just I have seen them in French-speaking parishes belonging to other jurisdictions. What I have failed to see is an obsession for democracy in everyone of them. What might have been true in the past is just that: something that belongs to the past. But don't let that deter Fr Andrew Philipps. After all, from the get-go, Daru was doomed, because it was founded by "traitors to the Czar", and that, as everyone knows, means you cannot be a good Christian. I could even go so far as to say that seeing the Czar as the vicar of Christ is what truly defines a good Orthodox Christian.

This is like everything else: Fr Andrew Philipps is mistaking rank 16th-century political theories with the Church. It seems he cannot admit that to be Orthodox does not mean being Russian. It is not the only revisionist theory he spins around, it is simply a bit sad that we should have to be exposed to the endless rant such a sad mind produces. I have never seen a priest who was so confident about spouting such hatred against the ones he doesn't like or approve of. This is simply unheard of. I do not doubt that this, in turn, won't put him in trouble with his hierarchy, since it never has: being loving and kind has always been on option for those who see the Church as a way of advancing a political agenda. I simply wish those people could leave the Church to find a safe haven in the various sects that paint icons of saint Nicholas the Passion-bearer as as second Lamb of God who offered his life for (Russian) mankind. That would be a relief.