Père Vassilieff (the Russian archpriest in Paris)

Who he is

A Russian Orthodox archpriest in Paris and a regular dinner guest of the Bashkirtseffs from 1882 to 1884. Marie usually calls him simply «le pope» and names him only twice: «Le prêtre Vassilieff et la Tchernitsky dînent ici» (096.0077, 14 August 1882) and, on 4 June 1884, when two priests call: «Celui qui vient toujours est archiprêtre comme l'autre et qui s'appelle Wassilieff est le pope de la colonie pas chic. L'autre qui se nomme Prilejuyeff est le pope chic» (104.0513). On 2 October 1883 she adds «le pope que je pourrai bien nommer l'archiprêtre puisque c'est son vrai grade» (101.0485). The Mon Journal indexes list him as «Vassilieff (prêtre)» (t.15 p.59), «Vassilieff (pope)» (t.16, thirteen pages from p.31 to p.211) and «Wassilieff (archiprêtre)» (t.16 pp.222, 230, 235); «Prilejueff (pope)» (t.16 p.222) is the other priest.

He is married and has a daughter of sixteen in 1884 (104.0732; «La femme et la fille du pope sont venues», 105.0220; Orthodox parish priests marry). On 16 March 1884, after mass, the ambassador presents him with a diamond-set cross subscribed by the Russian colony (103.0542), and the family «arrose la croix du pope» the next day (103.0552).

Earlier Paris mentions. On 30 August 1878, while Marie's grandfather lies dead at home and her uncle Georges disrupts the prayers, «Le père Vassilieff interrompit le service et envoya dire que s'il osait entrer il serait jugé comme sacrilège» (082.0230). «Le Pope» who calls on 7 July 1878 at the same time as Multedo (081.0369) is probably the same priest (0.75): the family is still in Paris that Sunday, with the grandfather gravely ill at home, and Father Vassilieff is the only Russian priest the diary names in Paris that summer.

Not to be confused with

• Iosif Vasilievich Vasiliev (1821-1881), rector of the Russian embassy church in Paris who built the Alexander Nevsky church (consecrated 1861): he left Paris for St Petersburg in 1867 and died there in December 1881 (Lopukhin, Pravoslavnaya bogoslovskaya entsiklopediya, vol. 3, «Васильев Иосиф Васильевич»; M. V. Oderova, Vestnik MGU, ser. 8, 2008). He cannot be Marie's «pope» of 1882-1884. Our archpriest's first name and dates were not found.
• The village priest at Gavrontsi in October 1882 («on essaye de saoûler le pope», 096.0471), who is a Ukrainian parish priest, not this man.
• The Pope of Rome (Pius IX): Pope.

References in Diary

081.0369 (probable); 082.0230; 096.0077, 096.0202; 099.0367; 100.0037, 0053, 0174, 0236, 0271, 0296, 0303, 0357, 0475; 101.0021, 0331, 0431, 0485; 102.0082, 0094, 0438, 0496, 0570; 103.0018, 0088, 0095, 0186, 0449, 0542, 0552; 104.0181, 0344, 0513, 0601, 0672, 0732; 105.0220, 0280, 0606, 0716.

Sources

• Marie Bashkirtseff, Journal; Mon Journal indexes t.15 and t.16.
• Lopukhin (ed.), Pravoslavnaya bogoslovskaya entsiklopediya, vol. 3, on Iosif Vasiliev (https://www.azbyka.ru/otechnik/Lopuhin/pravoslavnaja-bogoslovskaja-entsiklopedija-ili-bogoslovskij-entsiklopedicheskij-slovar-tom-tretij-vaal-vjacheslav/115).