Prior to its restoration by the French Church, the Gallican liturgy had been reconstructed by Father Pierre Lebrun of the Oratory (1661-1729), 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 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, lect