Changes

Prior to its restoration by the French Church, the Gallican liturgy had been reconstructed by Father Lebrun of the Oratory (18th c.), Father Vladimir Guettée (1816-1892), and the Abbbé Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne (1843-1922). After the formation of the [[Orthodox Church of France]] in 1936, the priest Evgraph Kovalevsky, later Bishop [[Jean-Nectaire (Kovalevsky) of Saint-Denis|Jean of Saint-Denis]], set about restoring the Gallican rite for use by the French Church. The principal documents he used that had been unavailable to his predecessors were two letters ascribed to St Germanus of Paris (496-576) that describe the liturgy in sixth-century Paris. Kovalevsky drew on the writings of numerous Gallican saints of the same era that provide information on Gallican liturgical practice, as well as extant missals, sacramentaries, lectionaries, and antiphonaries. The restored liturgy has gone through several editions (1956, 1968, 1973, 1975, and 1998). Some Orthodox outside of the French Church circulated rumors that the liturgy was simply a product of Kovalevsky's imagination. In response to this, [[Archbishop]] [[John Maximovitch]] chaired a special liturgical commission that studied the liturgy word by word, comparing it to the original sources. The 1961 report of the commission declared the liturgy to be authentic. It was approved for use by the [[Church of Russia]], the [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia]], and the [[Church of Romania]].