A Church originating from missionary activity of the see of Constantinople of the Orthodox Church, with a community organized at Kiev in the 9th-c. In 988, Christianity was declared (by Vladimir) the official faith; in the 14th-c Moscow became the see of the metropolitan; and in the 15th-c the Church declared itself autonomous. It existed in a state of tension with the emperor, and after the Revolution of 1917, was separated from the state and suffered some persecution. Gaining some recognition as a result of support of the authorities in World War 2, it was largely controlled by government agencies. It reflected the Byzantine or Greek tradition until the 19th-c, when a new translation of the Bible was approved, and in the 20th-c there was some revival of interest on the part of the intelligentsia, conscious of the role the Church had played in Russian art and culture. The contemporary Russian Church retains fidelity in doctrine and liturgy to its Orthodox inheritance, but is also developing its national character.
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The Russian Orthodox Church (Russian: Русская Православная церковь), also known as the Orthodox Catholic Church of Russia, is that body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs and primates of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In this way Russian Orthodox believers are in communion with all other Eastern Orthodox believers.
History
Foundation and earliest history
The Russian Orthodox Church is sometimes said to have been founded by the Apostle Andrew. This date is often considered the official birthday of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Links to Constantinople
The Church was originally a Metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Byzantine patriarch appointed the metropolitan who governed the Church of Rus'.
The fifteenth century
During the 15th century the Russian Church was pivotal in the survival and life of the Russian state.
At the Council of Florence 1439, a group of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church leaders agreed upon terms of reunification of the two branches of Christianity. The Russian Prince Basil II of Moscow, however, rejected the concessions to the Catholic Church and forbade the proclamation of the acts of the Council in Russia in 1452, after a short-lived East-West reunion.
In 1448, the Russian Church became independent from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. From this point onward the Russian Orthodox Church saw Moscow as the Third Rome, successor to Constantinople, and the Patriarch of Moscow as head of the Orthodox Church.
In the 1540s, Metropolitan Macarius convened a number of church synods, which culminated in the Hundred Chapter Synod of 1551. making the Russian Church autocephalous.
In 1652, Patriarch Nikon resolved to centralize power that had been distributed locally, while conforming Russian Orthodox rites and rituals to those of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Old Ritual Believers were separated from the Orthodox Church.
Expansion and the Holy Synod
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church experienced phenomenal geographic expansion.
In 1700, following Patriarch Adrian's death, Peter the Great prevented a successor from being named, and in 1721, following the advice of Feofan Prokopovich, he established the Holy and Supreme Synod to govern the church instead of a single primate (cf. This marked a beginning of a significant spiritual revival in the Russian Church after a lengthy period of westernization.
Twentieth century and revolution
In 1914 in Russia there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox churches and 29,593 chapels, 112,629 priests and deacons, 550 monasteries and 475 convents with a total of 95,259 monks and nuns.
The year 1917 was a major turning point for the history of Russia, and also the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian empire was dissolved and the Tsarist government - which had granted the Church numerous privileges - was overthrown. Thus the Russian Orthodox Church found itself without official state backing for the first time in its history. The Church was also caught in the crossfire of the Russian Civil War that began later the same year, and many leaders of the Church supported what would ultimately turn out to be the losing side (the White movement).
Even before the end of the civil war and the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church came under persecution of the secular Communist government. The Soviet government stood on a platform of militant atheism, viewing the church as a "counterrevolutionary" organization and an independent voice with a great influence in society.
Thousands of churches and monasteries were taken over by the government and either destroyed or used as warehouses, recreation centers, "museums of atheism", or even GULAGs. The government youth organization, the Komsomol, encouraged its members to vandalize Orthodox Churches and harrass worshippers. In 1927 Metropolitan Sergius, who took over the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church after Patriarch Tikhon's death, decided to accept the new government as legitimate, leading to a split with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
Life under the Soviets
Relations between the Soviet government and the Church improved considerably during World War II, with such milestones as the reopening of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary that had been closed since 1918. This came as a response to the opening of Orthodox Churches on Nazi occupied Soviet territory during the first months of the war. By 1987 the number of functioning churches in the Soviet Union had fallen to 6893 and the number of functioning monasteries to just 18.
The Church and the government remained on unfriendly terms until 1988.
A pivotal point in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church came in 1988 - the millennial anniversary of the Baptism of Kievan Rus'. For the first time in the history of Soviet Union, people could see live transmissions of church services on television.
Post-Soviet recovery
The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world and has seen a resurgence in activity and vitality since the end of Soviet rule. In keeping with other Orthodox churches, which do not place a high importance on weekly church attendance, the number of people regularly attending services is relatively low, however it has grown significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In December 2005 the Church had over 26,600 parishes, 164 bishops, 688 monasteries, and 102 clerical schools in the territory of the former Soviet Union and has a well-established presence in many other countries all over the world. In recent years many church buildings have been officially returned to the Church, most of these being in a deteriorated condition.
There have been difficulties in the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican, especially since 2002, when Pope John Paul II created a Catholic diocesan structure for Russian territory. The leadership of the Russian Church saw this action as a throwback to prior attempts by the Vatican to proselytize the Russian Orthodox faithful to become Roman Catholic. This point of view is based upon the stance of the Russian Orthodox Church (and the Eastern Orthodox Church) that the Church of Rome is but one of many equal Christian organizations, and that as such it is straying into territory that was already Christianized by the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, while acknowledging the primacy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia, believes that the small Catholic minority in Russia, in continuous existence since at least the 18th century, should be served by a fully developed church hierarchy with a presence and status in Russia, just as the Russian Orthodox Church is present in other countries.
The issue of encroachment by other Christian denominations into Russia is a particularly sensitive one to many members of the Russian Orthodox Church. They argue that the Orthodox Church now finds itself in a weakened position as a result of decades of secular Communist rule, and is therefore unable to compete on an equal footing with Western Churches. Thus, proselytizing by mostly foreign-based Catholics, Protestant denominations, and by many non-traditional sects can be seen as taking unfair advantage of the still-recovering condition of the Russian Church. On the other hand, many of these groups have argued that the position of Russian Orthodoxy is today no weaker than that of most Western European Churches. Smaller religious movements, particularly Baptists and members of other Protestant denominations, that have become active in Russia in the past decade claim that the state provides unfair support to the Orthodox Church and suppresses others, referring to the 1997 Russian law, under which those religious organizations that could not provide official proof of their existence for the preceding 15 years were seriously restricted in their rights and ability to worship. The law was formally presented as a way to combat destructive cults, but was condemned by representatives of other religions and human rights organizations as being written in a manner that explicitly favored the Russian Orthodox Church, as the Soviet Union had prohibited the establishment of other religions.
Due to its deep cultural roots, many members of the Russian government are keen to display their respect for the Church. It is common for the President of Russia to publicly meet with the Patriarch on Church holidays such as Easter (Paskha or Пасха in Russian).
The Russian Orthodox Church should not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (also known as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), based in New York. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was formed by Russian communities outside then-Communist Russia who refused to recognize the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, as they believed it had fallen under the influence of the Bolsheviks.
Structure and organization
Russian Orthodox Church is organized in a hierarchical structure.
Further, some eparchies are organized into Exarchates or autonomous churches. Latvian, Moldovan, and Estonian Orthodox Churches. Chinese and Japanese Orthodox Churches were granted full autonomy by Moscow Patriarchate, but this autonomy is not universally recognized. Larger eparchies, exarchates, and autonomous churches are governed by Metropolitans and sometimes also have one or more bishops assigned to them.
The highest level of authority in the Church is represented by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, head of the Moscow Patriarchate. Some of the most fundamental issues (such as the ones responsible for Catholic-Orthodox split) cannot be decided even on this level and have to be dealt with by a council of representatives from all Eastern Orthodox churches.
Doctrine and practices
Like all other Orthodox Churches, Russian Orthodox Church places the emphasis on preservation rather than evolution or adaptation of its doctrine and practices.
Further, the existence of full communion between most Eastern Orthodox Churches ensures that different churches do not drift apart significantly.
As a result, there are few differences between practices of Russian and other Eastern Orthodox churches, and these don't go far beyond using different languages in liturgies, or using Gregorian vs.
In Russian Orthodox Church, Church Slavonic language is used for the majority of religious ceremonies, although modern Russian may be used for non-scripted events such as sermons and confessions.
Russian Orthodox churches
Russian Orthodox church buildings differ in design from most western-type churches. Some of these images represant the Theotokos (who is particularly revered in the Russian Orthodox Church), saints, and scenes from their lives.
All Russian Orthodox churches have an iconostasis which separates the large hall of the church from the holy altar, which signifies the Heavenly Kingdom.
Another remarkable feature of many Russian churches is that this icon screen may reach all the way up into the dome (or domes) of the church. On the ceiling of many churches (inside the main dome in a domed church) is the iconography of Christ as Pantokrator ("Ruler of All").
Sometimes the bottoms of the crosses found on Russian churches will be adorned with a crescent.
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