Meetings of the Vicariate of French-Speaking Parishes in Paris

30 – 31 May 2025

On May 30 and 31, 2025, the “Vicariate Meetings 2025” were held in Paris, organized by the Holy Metropolis of France and the Vicariate of French-Speaking Parishes “Saint Marie Skobtsova of Paris and Saint Alexis of Ugine”, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the context of these Meetings, three lectures took place, namely “Mission of the Church in Africa” by Metropolitan Grigorios of Cameroon (Patriarchate of Alexandria), “Church and Modernity” by Fr. Alexis Uminsky (Notre Dame du Signe, Vicariate), “The Liturgy After the Liturgy and the Contemporary Challenges for Orthodoxy” by Pantelis Kalaitzidis (Volos Academy for Theological Studies). Along with the lectures a round table was also organised on “Unity and Diversity in the Church”, with the participation of Cyrille Sollogoub, Olga Lossky-Laham, Julijia Vidovic, Georges El Hage, Fr. Andrey Kordochkin and Michel Tarran. The annual general assembly of the Vicariate was also held. The events of the Meetings were the conclusion of the series of online lectures of the Vicariate “The Liturgy after the Liturgy”, held during the last two years in collaboration with the Volos Academy of Theological Studies.

In his message, Metropolitan Demetrios of France expressed his thanks to all the participants, underlining the community of faith, which resides in the diversity of expressions, traditions, languages and gifts, and which has to exceed the limits of the space of worship (see the text of the speech here https://vicariatorthodoxe.fr/mgr-dimitrios-journees-riches-dechanges-rencontres-vicariat/ ).

The Director of Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, in his lecture referred to the theological vision of the “liturgy after the liturgy” as initially formulated by the great Russian theologian of the diaspora Paul Evdokimov, and subsequently shaped by the late Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) of Albania and the Romanian priest Fr. Ion Bria, Secretariat of the Mission Department at the World Council of Churches. He went on by exposing the various challenges the Church faces in our days, such as the crisis of multiple divisions and its implications for the Catholicity and universality of the Church, the crisis of the eschatological self-consciousness of the Church and the dialectic of tradition and renewal, the deficits in the dialogical readiness of the Church in its relationship with the world and the culture, the ecclesiastical culturalism, the problematic relationship of Orthodoxy with modernity, the necessity of changing the theological “paradigm”, anthropological questions, the relationship between Orthodoxy and science and the challenges of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, the shift of the center of gravity of Christianity from the North to the “Global South” and the risk of historical marginalization of Orthodoxy, and ultimately the demand for prophetic witness in the contemporary world. The lecture concluded with a reference to the necessity of elaborating a theology of otherness and an open version of identity, in accordance with the proposal of the late Metropolitan of Pergamon John D. Zizioulas.

The video recording of the speech is available in the YouTube channel of the Vicariate, at https://youtu.be/q7z111mxeYU.