MOSCOW: February 26, 2018
Novospassky Monastery hosts another gathering of the program “Russian Diaspora”

On February 26, 2018, Novospassky Monastery in Moscow is hosting a regular meeting of the cycle “Russian Diaspora,” organized by the Union of the Descendants of the Russians of Gallipoli.

This year’s event focuses on the life of the White Army emigres in Belgium.

Alexander Alexandrovich Khudokormov is the son of Colonel Alexander Vasilievich Khudokormov, the first President of the UDRG in Belgium.

Belgium welcomed some 10,000 Russian refugees, and became one of the centers of the Russian military and political diaspora of the White Movement. General Anton Denikin found a home here in the 1920’s.

Baron von Wrangel, the Russian general, also lived and died in Brussels. It was in Belgium on September 1, 1924, that the Russkij Obshche-Voinskij Soyuz [ROVS—the Russian Military Union] was established; it was the oldest military anti-Bolshevik organization of the Russian diaspora, and continued the work of the White Movement. From 1920-1930, Orthodox churches were established all over Belgium, in private homes, garages and basements. They became centers for Russian refugees to gather, representing the sole bond to their lost Homeland.

Khudokormov took an active role in the Russian scout movement in Belgium. He studied at Catholic University in Lowen and graduated from the Free University in Belgium. He worked as a Belgian diplomat in the USSR, Nigeria, Israel and Austria. From 1995 to the mid-2000’s, he was a trade representative of Wallonia at the Belgian Embassy in Moscow. He then returned to Belgium, where he serves as Warden of St Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.