The application of the Local Council of Moscow of 1917-1918 in the statutes of the archdiocese of Russian Orthodox churches in Western Europe

This article examines the application of the decisions of the local Council of Moscow of 1917-1918 in the statutes of the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe, attached to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and whose cathedral is located on rue Daru in Paris. Proceeding with a rigorous canonical analysis, the author systematically compares the statutory provisions of the Archdiocese — at both the diocesan and parish levels — with the conciliar decrees of 1917-1918. He shows that these statutes, adopted in 1924 and revised in 1998-1999, faithfully apply the principle of conciliarity (_sobornost_) through mixed clergy-laity bodies, the election of the archbishop and episcopal irremovability. The main contribution of the study is to demonstrate that the Russian diaspora in Western Europe, prevented in the USSR by the Soviet regime, not only preserved but sometimes surpassed the conciliar legacy of 1917-1918, by adapting it to the French legal framework of religious associations and to the internal autonomy status of the Archdiocese.