Alexis van der Mensbrugghe
Alexis van der Mensbrugghe was a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk convert to Orthodox Christianity who worked to establish a Gallican liturgical rite as an archbishop of the Church of Russia.
Life
Archbishop Alexis van der Mensbrugghe was born in Belgium in 1899. He became a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk in a monastery at Amay-sur-Met. In April 1929, he was received into the Orthodox Church by Metr. Eulogius of Paris. When the Western Church's St. Denys Theological Institute opened in Paris, Archim. Alexis occupied the chair of Patristic Theology and Ancient Liturgies while he remained in the Eastern rite.
Archim. Alexis became associated with the group led by Evgraph Kovalevsky under the Church of Russia that was working to restore a Gallican liturgical usage based on correspondence of the sixth century Bishop of Paris St. Germanus. The rite became known as the Divine Liturgy according to St. Germanus of Paris.
Archim. Alexis was consecrated a bishop of the Church of Russia's episcopate on November 1, 1960, with the title of Bishop Meudon, auxiliary bishop of the then West European Exarchate, while he continued his Western Rite work under the auspices of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Archbishop Alexis reposed in 1980.
See also
Sources
- W. Jardine Grisbrooke, “Obituaries: Archbishop Alexis van der Mensbrugghe” in Sobornost 4.2 (1981), 212-216.
- Wikipedia:Western Orthodox Church
- A Brief History of Western Orthodoxy