NICE's St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral still closed?

You could ask them. +33 9 83 94 71 55

Russian churches usually follow the Orthodox ('Old') calendar, and celebrate the Nativity feast on 6th/7th January (civil calendar) which is 25th December on the Orthodox calendar. Could be why you are hearing different dates.

Since 2011 there has been a legal altercation between the French Government and that of the Russian Federation over the property ownership of the cathedral . As I understand , this has been settled , and The Russian Federation has embarked on the cathedral restoration . While the projected finish date for this project had been sometime in 2014 , people who are conversant with projections and actual completion times for major construction projects are keenly aware that great discrepancies between them are common ( a singular example would be the operational start of the new Edinburgh Tram ) . I visited St Petersburg for nearly three weeks this past Autumn and visited a number of Orthodox cathedrals in a similar state . ( exteriors completed in recent years , but interiors with several years of work remaining ) The short answer here is , if you will be in Nice , go over and check it out , but no guarantees . When I visited Nice a few years ago , I could see ( and photograph ) the exterior , but could not enter . There are many issues that slow these things to a crawl . For example , a section of mosaic wall that is held up due to the underlying substrate that needs replacement . Having read a number of your recent posts , I am not certain of your actual itinerary , but if you will be in Nice , take a look anyway . There is a Russian Orthodox Church in Menton , a short distance away , that might be worth a look if the cathedral in Nice is closed