Topic: Russian Church
December 19th marked the 100th anniversary of the consecration of the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Nice. A special ceremony was held on this occasion, Voice of Russia reports. Russia is to fund a project to renovate the cathedral, Kremlin property manager Vladimir Kozhin announced at the ceremony. Construction work on the project is scheduled to start in 2013.
Built under the personal supervision by Emperor Nicholas II, the St. Nicholas Cathedral is one of the biggest Orthodox churches in Western Europe. It attracts a quarter million worshipers and sightseers each year.
From 1931 until December 15, 2011, the parish that occupied the cathedral was part of the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople.
From 2005 till December 2011, there was a protracted ownership and church jurisdictional dispute over the church building as well as control over the parish, between the existing administration of the Exarchate and the Russian government.
The Russian state, which in 2010 was recognized by the French court as the title-holder as the legal successor of the Russian Empire, made a decision in 2011 to turn the church building over to the Moscow Patriarchate. The dispute partly stemmed from a conflict between old Russian nobility who settled in Nice long ago and Russians who arrived in recent decades.
© Voice of Russia. 20 December, 2012