Saint Sophrony the New and Bishop John of Saint-Denis (Eugraph Kovalevsky)

This article examines the relationship between Starets Sophrony Sakharov, founder of the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Essex, and Eugraph Kovalevsky, Bishop John of Saint-Denis and founder of the Catholic Orthodox Church of France. Through a historical and biographical study, the authors reconstruct the bonds of friendship and spiritual influence that united these two prominent figures of Orthodoxy in the West during the twentieth century. The central idea is that Sophrony played a decisive supporting role in the ecclesiological and liturgical approach championed by Kovalevsky, particularly by encouraging his founding impulse. On the theological and historical level, the article contributes to a better understanding of the relational dynamics within Orthodox diaspora circles, as well as the conditions under which the project of a Western-expression Orthodoxy in France was developed.