Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Nice

Cathedral of Saint Nicholas
Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas
Cathedral of Saint Nicholas; Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas
	Russian Orthodox Church/Korsun diocese
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Cathedral
Location
Location	Nice, France
Geographic coordinates	43°42′14″N 7°15′14″E / 43.70389°N 7.25389°E
Architecture
Type	Church
Groundbreaking	1903
Completed	1912

The St Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, Nice (

Moscow Patriarchate

. It is the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe.

The cathedral was opened in 1912, thanks to the generosity of

Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople

. After 2011, following a final ruling by France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, the cathedral was declared to be property of the Russian state, and the congregation came under the jurisdiction of the Korsun diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.

History

Beginning in the mid-19th century, Russian nobility visited Nice and the French Riviera, following the fashion established decades earlier by the English upper class and nobility. In 1864, immediately after the railway reached Nice, Tsar Alexander II visited by train and was attracted by the pleasant climate. Thus began an association between Russians and the French Riviera that continues to this day.

The cathedral, consecrated in December 1912 in memory of

Tsar Nicholas II

funded the construction work.

After 1917, Communist persecution of religion in Russia led some Russian Orthodox dioceses abroad to form jurisdictions not affiliated with Moscow. One of these, the Paris-based exarchate, later assumed control of the Nice Cathedral.

On 20 January 2010, a French Court (the Tribunal of First Instance at Nice) ruled that the title to the cathedral should be held by the Russian state.

Legal dispute

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 (for legal purposes represented by the "association culturelle") on the one hand and the

Moscow Patriarchate.^[3]

On 10 April 2013, the

Court of Appeal

, with the result that the building itself and the parcel of land on which it stands were confirmed as the property of the Russian Federation.