For those who speak French (or try to keep up with the French they learned long ago ) many Byzantine liturgical texts can be found on this Canadian Orthodox website (which has the blessing of Bishop Seraphim of the OCA):

http://www.top.ca/users/thabor/index.htm

The Akathist to the Mother of God can be found in French at:

http://www.top.ca/users/thabor/metanoia/acathist.htm

There are also some French Orthodox writings of interest, particularly those of Pere Lev Gillet.

Très-sainte Mère de Dieu, intercède pour nous.

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Very good sites Mr. Braun!

But if you want to get "shocked" you should see this one:

http://www.a2points.com/homepage/orthodoxie/

The Frech Orthodox Church, a jurisdiction of the ROCOR (??), that uses the "Galican Rite", the rite of St. Germanus, that was used by the French church until the western rites were supressed. They've done a great labour I think (la restauration du rite galicain).

What surprised me is that they're in union with the ROCOR, which is ultraconservative and anti-western.

Que votre coeur soit bon!

Merci for the Orthodox pages in français! I don't speak it, really, but can sound it out fairly well and read a good deal of it thanks to knowing Latin and Spanish. On my site there are now links to it.

The Orthodox Church of France used to be part of ROCOR, yes, back in the 1950s when St John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco was the ROCOR bishop of Paris. (They may have begun in the 1930s when some vagantes were received into the MP.) I understand what happened to them was for some reason they switched to the Romanian Church, then were dropped by them after the Roman Catholic authorities in France complained. So they are kind of orphaned ecclesiastically now. I still have some literature from when they had a small congregation here and find it perfectly Orthodox. I also have a copy of the ordo of the Mass of St Germain they use (and that St John helped them write), the supposed re-creation of the Gallican Rite, and to me it seems very pretty (and quite Catholic and Orthodox) but an artificial construction, heavily byzantinized, a kind of hothouse flower.

http://oldworldrus.com

I just came across two interesting articles on the Canadian website mentioned above:

An article by Coptic Orthodox monk, Fr Matthew the Poor:

http://www.top.ca/users/thabor/pages-choisies/matta-autrui.htm

This one really surprised me (pleasantly) for a website having the blessing of an OCA Bishop. It's a positive comparison of St Silouan with St Therese of Lisieux (complete with an icon of St Therese!):

http://www.top.ca/users/thabor/saints/silouan3.htm

The article is entitled:

Therese de Lisieux, Silouane de L'Athos: L'amour au coeur du monde et de l'eglise

which I roughly translate as:

Therese of Lisieux, Silouane of Athos: Love at the heart of the world and the Church.

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com