The St. Sergius Theological Institute in Paris was founded in 1925 by Evlogii (1868–1946), the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe, with the strong support of the YMCA. Classes at the institute were held in Russian, and its students were recruited exclusively from Orthodox circles. At St. Sergius, different theological streams present in pre-revolutionary Russia came together: Among its professors, we find Sergei N. Bulgakov (1871–1944), Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), Fr. Archimandrite Cyprian Kern (1899–1960), and Fr. Nicolas Afanassieff (1893–1966); the alumni include Fr. Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983) and Fr. John Meyendorff (1926–1992). The Institute continues today as a private school of higher education in Orthodox theology, but classes are now held in French.
Church of the St. Sergius Theological Institute, Paris, colour photograph, 2011, photographer: Groume; source: Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris,_%C3%A9glise_orthodoxe_Saint-Serge.jpg?, Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.