141-643: The Russian Greek Catholic Church or Russian Byzantine Catholic Church is a sui iuris Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Church of the worldwide Catholic Church . Historically, it represents a both a movement away from the control of the Church by the State and towards the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church. It is in full communion with and subject to
282-638: A major seminary to train their clergy. The Russian Greek Catholic Church is currently led by Bishop Joseph Werth as its ordinary. As of 2019, there were around 3,000 members of the church. An exarchate was established in 1917, and Soviet repression meant that Eastern Catholics went underground. Their outstanding figure, Mother Catherine Abrikosova , was subjected to a Stalinist -era show trial and spent more than 10 years in solitary confinement before her death in 1936. The position of Eastern Catholics in Russia – as opposed to that of Poles or Lithuanians in
423-718: A positio towards the Causes for Beatification of six of what Fr. Christopher Zugger has termed, "The Passion bearers of the Russian Catholic Exarchate": Fabijan Abrantovich , Anna Abrikosova , Igor Akulov , Potapy Emelianov , Halina Jętkiewicz , and Andrzej Cikoto ; was submitted to the Holy See 's Congregation for the Causes of Saints by the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Russia . With
564-537: A self-governing Eastern Catholic Church , but without the actual title, over the Russian Empire. In addition to the extremely rare privilege of Communicatio in sacris as a tool of Greek Catholic evangelisation, Sheptytsky was told that he was free to ordain priests and even to consecrate Bishops while reporting only to the Pope himself. Pope Pius advised Sheptytsky, however, to delay using his powers openly until
705-418: A contested issue. Following the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700, Peter I of Russia ( r. 1682–1725 ) decided against an election of a new patriarch, and drawing on the clergy that came from Ukraine, he appointed Stefan Yavorsky as locum tenens . Peter believed that Russia's resources, including the church, could be used to establish a modern European state and he sought to strengthen
846-711: A critic of the Moscow Patriarchate who was one of those who briefly gained access to the KGB 's archives in the early 1990s, argued that the Moscow Patriarchate was "practically a subsidiary, a sister company of the KGB". Critics charge that the archives showed the extent of active participation of the top ROC hierarchs in the KGB efforts overseas. George Trofimoff , the highest-ranking US military officer ever indicted for, and convicted of, espionage by
987-623: A decision on the dispute, Pope Pius X decreed that Russian Greek Catholic priests should offer the Divine Liturgy Nec Plus, Nec Minus, Nec Aliter ("No more, No Less, No Different") than priests of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Old Believers . After the outbreak of World War I , the heavily Eastern Catholic Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was occupied by
1128-538: A delegation to the king of Poland warning him not to accept Gregory; Jonah also attempted to persuade feudal princes and nobles who resided in Lithuania to continue to side with Orthodoxy, but this attempt failed. The fall of Constantinople and the beginning of autocephaly of the Russian Church contributed to political consolidation in Russia and the development of a new identity based on awareness that Moscow
1269-567: A more opportune time, as otherwise the infamously anti-Catholic Imperial Russian Government would cause an enormous amount of trouble for him. Soon after, the semi-underground parish of the Russian Greek Catholic Church in St. Petersburg split between the followers of Pro-Latinisation priest Fr. Aleksei Zerchaninov and those of Pro-Orientalist priest Fr. Ivan Deubner . When asked by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky to make
1410-588: A move that caused division among clergy and faithful that persisted until 1946. Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Eastern Orthodox priests were arrested. Of these, 95,000 were put to death. Many thousands of victims of persecution became recognized in a special canon of saints known as the " new martyrs and confessors of Russia". When Patriarch Tikhon died in 1925, the Soviet authorities forbade patriarchal election. Patriarchal locum tenens (acting Patriarch) Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky, 1887–1944), going against
1551-655: A multi-candidate election, the Church again attempted to run its own religious candidates in the 1937 elections . However the support of multicandidate elections was retracted several months before the elections were held and in neither 1929 nor 1937 were any candidates of the Orthodox Church elected. After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for
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#17327725118621692-549: A personal archive of papers having, "to do with matters in which the Pope was particularly interested." The person most responsible for the creation of the Russian Greek Catholic Church, however, was Metropolitan bishop Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church . According to his biographer Fr. Cyril Korolevsky, Sheptytsky's lifelong obsession with reuniting the Russian people with
1833-468: A see determined or recognized by the Supreme authority of the Church, who presides over an entire Eastern Church sui iuris that is not distinguished with the patriarchal title. What is stated in common law concerning patriarchal Churches or patriarchs is understood to be applicable to major archiepiscopal churches or major archbishops, unless the common law expressly provides otherwise or it is evident from
1974-659: A series of reforms led to a schism in the Russian Church , as the Old Believers opposed the changes. The ROC currently claims exclusive jurisdiction over the Eastern Orthodox Christians, irrespective of their ethnic background, who reside in the former member republics of the Soviet Union , excluding Georgia . The ROC also created the autonomous Church of Japan and Chinese Orthodox Church . The ROC eparchies in Belarus and Latvia , since
2115-776: A single candidate for the office of bishop or any other high-ranking office, much less a member of the Holy Synod, went through without confirmation by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the KGB ". Professor Nathaniel Davis points out: "If the bishops wished to defend their people and survive in office, they had to collaborate to some degree with the KGB, with the commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs, and with other party and governmental authorities". Patriarch Alexy II, acknowledged that compromises were made with
2256-644: A total of 95,259 monks and nuns in Russia. The year 1917 was a major turning point in Russian history, and also the Russian Orthodox Church. In early March 1917 (O.S.), the Tsar was forced to abdicate , the Russian empire began to implode, and the government's direct control of the Church was all but over by August 1917. On 15 August (O.S.), in the Moscow Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin,
2397-827: Is legally incompetent and under the control of another. It also indicates a person capable of suing and/or being sued in a legal proceeding in his own name ( suo nomine ) without the need of an ad litem , that is, a court appointed representative, acting on behalf of a defendant, who is deemed to be incapable of representing himself. Russian Orthodox Church Autocephaly recognized by some autocephalous Churches de jure : Autocephaly and canonicity recognized by Constantinople and 3 other autocephalous Churches: Spiritual independence recognized by Georgian Orthodox Church: Semi-Autonomous: The Russian Orthodox Church ( ROC ; Russian : Русская православная церковь , romanized : Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov' , abbreviated as РПЦ), alternatively legally known as
2538-683: Is applied also to missions that lack enough clergy to be set up as apostolic prefectures but are for various reasons given autonomy and so are not part of any diocese, apostolic vicariate or apostolic prefecture. In 2004, there were eleven such missions: three in the Atlantic, Cayman Islands , Turks and Caicos , and Saint Helena , Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ; two in the Pacific, Funafuti ( Tuvalu ), and Tokelau ; and six in central Asia, Afghanistan , Baku ( Azerbaijan ), Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan . According to CCEO,
2679-587: Is believed, by the example of the Discalced Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne during the French Revolution , "In addition to the three usual religious vows, the sisters took a fourth vow, to suffer for the salvation of Russia. God heard their desire, and soon they were to suffer much, for many years." The October Revolution and Anti-Catholic religious persecution soon followed, dispersing Russian Greek Catholics to Siberia ,
2820-644: Is disputed which church has been the legitimate successor to the Russian Orthodox Church that had existed before 1925. In 1927, Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgiyevsky) of Paris broke with the ROCOR (along with Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) of New York, leader of the Russian Metropolia in America). In 1930, after taking part in a prayer service in London in supplication for Christians suffering under
2961-538: Is little information about Christianity in sources in the period between 969 and 988. Ten years after seizing power, Grand Prince Vladimir was baptized in 988 and began Christianizing his people upon his return. That year was decreed by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988 as the date of the Christianization of the country. According to the Chronicle , Vladimir had previously sent envoys to investigate
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#17327725118623102-744: Is not so say, however, that State control over the Russian Orthodox Church was always accepted without criticism or opposition. In defiance of the Tsar's absolute power, St. Philip , the former Starets and Hegumen of the Solovetsky Monastery , located above the Arctic Circle , and Metropolitan bishop of Moscow, preached sermons in Tsar Ivan the Terrible's presence that condemned the indiscriminate use of state terror against real and imagined traitors and their entire families by
3243-523: The 1945 Local Council from the representatives of the clergy and the laity. NKVD demanded "to outline persons who have religious authority among the clergy and believers, and at the same time checked for civic or patriotic work". In the letter sent in September 1944, it was emphasized: "It is important to ensure that the number of nominated candidates is dominated by the agents of the NKBD, capable of holding
3384-675: The Apostle Andrew visited Scythia and Greek colonies along the northern coast of the Black Sea before making his way to Chersonesus in Crimea . According to the legend, Andrew reached the future location of Kiev and foretold the foundation of a great Christian city with many churches. Then, "he came to the [land of the] Slovenians where Novgorod now [stands]" and observed the locals, before eventually arriving in Rome . Despite
3525-691: The Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox churches in Western Europe . Moreover, in the 1929 elections , the Orthodox Church attempted to formulate itself as a full-scale opposition group to the Communist Party, and attempted to run candidates of its own against the Communist candidates. Article 124 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution officially allowed for freedom of religion within the Soviet Union, and along with initial statements of it being
3666-863: The Council of Florence in 1439. This was why, when Fr. Edmund A. Walsh , the head of the American and Papal relief missions during the Russian famine of 1921 , and the Exarch of the Russian Greek Catholic Church first met one another and conversed in Ecclesiastical Latin , Feodorov, who admired Patriarch Tikhon and felt only contempt for the so-called Living Church, urged that the Famine Relief food supplies be entrusted to not only to Catholic clergy, but also to those Russian Orthodox priests who remained loyal to Patriarch Tikhon for distribution to
3807-548: The Council of Florence , the only Russian prelate present at the council signed the union, which, according to his companion, was only under duress. Metropolitan Isidore left Florence on 6 September 1439 and returned to Moscow on 19 March 1441. The chronicles say that three days after arriving in Moscow, Grand Prince Vasily II arrested Isidore and placed him under supervision in the Chudov Monastery . According to
3948-715: The Eastern Catholic Churches were increasingly treated as illegal in the Russian Empire beginning with the forced conversion of the Archeparchy of Polotsk-Vitebsk by Bishop Joseph Semashko between 1837 and 1839 and continuing with the 1874–1875 Conversion of Chelm Eparchy and the martyrdom of 13 unarmed men and boys by the Imperial Russian Army in the village of Pratulin , near Biała Podlaska on January 24, 1874. It
4089-584: The Gulag and the Russian diaspora throughout the world. At the same time, though, conversions continued to take place. In 1918, Fr. Potapy Emelianov , a former Priestless Old Believer and priest of the Old Ritualist tradition within the Russian Orthodox Church , entered into communion with the Holy See along with his entire parish, which was located at Nizhnaya Bogdanovka , near Kadiivka , in
4230-532: The Gulag . On June 17, 1935, a closed session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union sentenced Archbishop Bartholomew Remov, "to the supreme penalty, death by shooting, with confiscation of property. The sentence is final and no appeal is allowed." Metropolitan Bartholomew Remov was executed soon after. Mother Catherine Abrikosova died of spinal cancer based in
4371-611: The Holy See by making profession of faith before Bishop Félix Julien Xavier Jourdain de la Passardière at the Church of St. Louis des Français in Moscow . Under oath, Fr. Nicholas renounced all contrary to Catholic doctrine and accepted both the Council of Florence and the First Vatican Council . At Fr. Nicholas's request, all documents relating to his conversion were conveyed to Pope Leo XIII , who kept them along with
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4512-543: The Holy See goes back at least to his first trip there in 1887. Afterwards, Sheptytsky "wrote some reflections" between October and November of 1887, and expressed his belief, "that the Great Schism , which became definitive in Russia in the fifteenth century, was a bad tree, and it was useless to keep cutting the branches without uprooting the trunk itself, because the branches would always grow back." Following his elevation to Metropolitan bishop of Lviv and Halych at
4653-492: The Imperial Russian Army . Count Georgiy Bobrinsky , an infamously anti-Catholic member of the Tsarist civil service, was appointed as Governor General of a Province which had long been claimed as Russian territory by both extreme and moderate Slavophiles . A policy of anti-Eastern Catholic religious persecution , anti-Jewish pogroms , and forced Russification and both voluntary and forced conversions to Russian Orthodoxy
4794-512: The Irkutsk labor camp against spiritual despondency and doubt, the Exarch advised her, "That is well. The Lord will sustain you, but if ever the moment returns when you no longer feel this support, don't be frightened. The Lord's aid is perhaps precisely the most abundant when it seems that He has forsaken us." During a later conversation, the Exarch confided in Danzas, "The true Messianism of
4935-669: The Latin Church – is still tenuous, with little organisation in place. Their existence remains a flashpoint in Rome 's relations with the Russian Orthodox , who are intensely suspicious of Catholic activity in Russia . According to Fr. Christopher Lawrence Zugger, the conversion of Kievan Rus in 988 at the orders of the Grand Prince of Kiev St. Vladimir the Great was an entry into a still unified Christendom . It
5076-709: The Local ( Pomestniy ) Council of the ROC, the first such convention since the late 17th century, opened. The council continued its sessions until September 1918 and adopted a number of important reforms, including the restoration of Patriarchate , a decision taken 3 days after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd on 25 October (O.S.). On 5 November, Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow
5217-501: The Luhansk Oblast of modern Ukraine. Meanwhile, Exarch Leonid Feodorov made presentations, participated in discussions with Orthodox clergy, including Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd . At the time, Patriarch Tikhon was faced with the ongoing Soviet-backed Living Church Schism and was determined defend the hard won independence of the Moscow Patriarchate from again being lost to control by
5358-492: The Mongol invasions , Metropolitan Maximus moved his seat to Vladimir in 1299, "being unable to tolerate Tatar violence", according to a later chronicle. His successor, Peter , found himself caught in the conflict between the principalities of Tver and Moscow for supremacy in northwest Russia . Peter moved his residence to Moscow in 1325 and became a strong ally of the prince of Moscow. During Peter's tenure in Moscow,
5499-412: The Moscow Patriarchate ( Russian : Московский патриархат , romanized : Moskovskiy patriarkhat ), is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The primate of the ROC is the patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' . The Christianization of Kievan Rus' commenced in 988 with the baptism of Vladimir the Great and his subjects by the clergy of
5640-593: The Oprichnina . Metropolitan Philip also withheld the traditional blessing from the Tsar during the Divine Liturgy . In response, the Tsar convened a Church Council, whose bishops obediently declared Metropolitan Philip deposed on false charges of moral offenses and imprisoned him in a monastery. When the former Metropolitan refused a request from the Tsar to bless his plans for the 1570 Massacre of Novgorod , Tsar Ivan allegedly sent Malyuta Skuratov to smother
5781-423: The Pope exercises his papal authority, and the authority that in other particular churches belongs to a Patriarch . He has, therefore, been referred to also as Patriarch of the West. The other particular Churches are called Eastern Catholic Churches , each of which, if large enough, has its own patriarch or other chief hierarch, with authority over all the bishops of that particular Church or rite. The same term
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5922-481: The Russian Revolution of 1905 , when Tsar Nicholas II grudgingly granted religious tolerance. Thereafter, communities of Russian Greek Catholics emerged and became organized. Old Believers were prominent in the early years of the movement. After the Russian Revolution of 1905 , Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who was seeking to assume jurisdiction over the growing number of Eastern Catholics in Russia, had two audiences, in 1907 and 1908, with Pope Pius X in which
6063-402: The Russian SFSR , between 40% and 50% of newborn babies (depending on the region) were baptized. Over 60% of all deceased received Christian funeral services. Beginning in the late 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev, the new political and social freedoms resulted in the return of many church buildings to the church, so they could be restored by local parishioners. A pivotal point in the history of
6204-428: The Russian diaspora . Sui juris Sui iuris ( / ˈ s uː aɪ ˈ dʒ ʊər ɪ s / or / ˈ s uː i ˈ j u r ɪ s / ), also spelled sui juris , is a Latin phrase that literally means "of one's own right". It is used in both the Catholic Church 's canon law and secular law. The term church sui iuris is used in the Catholic Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO) to denote
6345-435: The Soviet Union , which had refused to recognise the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate that was de facto headed by Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky . The two churches reconciled on 17 May 2007 ; the ROCOR is now a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church. One of the foundational narratives associated with the history of Orthodoxy in Russia is found in the 12th-century Primary Chronicle , which says that
6486-407: The United States and sentenced to life imprisonment on 27 September 2001, had been "recruited into the service of the KGB" by Igor Susemihl (a.k.a. Zuzemihl), a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church (subsequently, a high-ranking hierarch—the ROC Metropolitan Iriney of Vienna , who died in July 1999). Konstanin Kharchev, former chairman of the Soviet Council on Religious Affairs, explained: "Not
6627-429: The autonomous churches in Catholic communion . The Catholic Church consists of 24 churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic churches. The Latin sui iuris (the individual words meaning 'self' and 'law') corresponds to the Greek 'αὐτόνομος', from which the English word autonomy is derived. The spelling in Classical Latin is sui iuris , and in Medieval Latin sui juris . English Law gets
6768-415: The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople , which traditionally marks the beginning of the history of Russian Christianity. Starting in the 14th century, Moscow served as the primary residence of the metropolitan , and in 1448, the ROC declared autocephaly . Later, in 1589, the metropolitan of Moscow was elevated to the position of patriarch with the consent of Constantinople. In the mid-17th century,
6909-416: The martyrdom of Greek Catholic Deacon Peter Artemiev at Solovetsky Monastery on March 30, 1700, was so enraged on 11 July 1705 to see icons of Eastern Catholic Starets , bishop, and martyr St. Josaphat Kuntsevych inside the Basilian monastery church in Polotsk , that the Tsar immediately desecrated the Eucharist and then personally murdered several priests who attempted to retrieve it. In 1721,
7050-452: The non-possessors , who opposed monastic landholding except for the purposes of charity in addition to strong involvement of the church in the affairs of the state, while Joseph of Volotsk (1439–1515) led a movement that supported strong church involvement in the state's affairs. By 1551, the Stoglav Synod addressed the lack of uniformity in existing ecclesial practices. Metropolitan Macarius also collected "all holy books... available in
7191-429: The oriental Catholic Churches . This canonical term, pregnant with many juridical nuances, indicates the God-given mission of the Oriental Catholic Churches to keep up their patrimonial autonomous nature. And the autonomy of these churches is relative in the sense that it is under the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. By far the largest of the sui iuris churches is the Latin Church . Over that particular church,
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#17327725118627332-446: The sacral bone in Butyrka prison on 23 July 1936. Similarly to Metropolitan Bartholomew Remov, her remains were secretly cremated at buried in a Mass grave at the Donskoy Cemetery of central Moscow. Following the outbreak of the Second World War , several Greek Catholic Jesuit priests who had graduated from the Russicum in Rome, including Frs. Walter Ciszek , Pietro Leoni , Ján Kellner , Viktor Novikov, and Jerzy Moskwa, used
7473-421: The Bolsheviks trying to take control of the monastery's premises and the believers, Patriarch Tikhon issued a proclamation that anathematised the perpetrators of such acts. The church was caught in the crossfire of the Russian Civil War that began later in 1918, and church leadership, despite their attempts to be politically neutral (from the autumn of 1918), as well as the clergy generally were perceived by
7614-399: The Byzantine Rite. However, after grueling Soviet oppression, their church was effectively forced underground and Georgian Greek Catholics are now a minority. In civil law, the phrase sui juris indicates legal competence, and refers to an adult who has the capacity to manage his or her own affairs. It is opposed to alieni juris , meaning one such as a minor or mentally disabled person who
7755-416: The Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church and those in communion with it. A church sui iuris is "a community of the Christian faithful, which is joined together by a hierarchy according to the norm of law and which is expressly or tacitly recognized as sui iuris by the supreme authority of the Church" (CCEO.27). The term sui iuris is an innovation of the CCEO, and it denotes the relative autonomy of
7896-586: The Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated materialism and atheism in schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed. Orthodox clergy and active believers were treated by the Soviet law-enforcement apparatus as anti-revolutionary elements and were habitually subjected to formal prosecutions on political charges, arrests, exiles, imprisonment in camps , and later could also be incarcerated in mental hospitals . However,
8037-460: The Exarch revealed that felt profoundly moved to be incarcerated in the former monastery complex once led by St. Philip of Moscow . The Exarch also reverently kissed both the vestments once used by the former Hegumen and the stone which St. Philip had once used instead of a pillow. The Exarch commented, "On this stone, the Saint had not only radiant visions, but how many bitter tears did he shed!" When Danzas described her own recent struggles inside
8178-441: The Latin Church or convert to Orthodoxy. In 2004, however, the Vatican's hand was forced when a convocation of Russian Greek Catholic priests met in Sargatskoye , Omsk Oblast and used their rights under canon law to elect Father Sergey Golovanov as temporary Exarch. The Pope then moved quickly to replace Father Sergey with Bishop Joseph Werth , the Latin Church Apostolic Administrator of Siberia, based in Novosibirsk . Bishop Werth
8319-464: The Opposition in the Duma , Sheptytsky spent a total of three years as a prisoner of conscience held by the Russian Orthodox monks at the Monastery of Saint Euthymius in Suzdal . After the February Revolution of 1917 and the forced abdication of Tsar Nicholas II , the new Russian Provisional Government ordered his release. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky travelled immediately to St. Petersburg , where he convened an ecclesiastical council under
8460-442: The Oriental Catholic churches sui iuris are of four categories. A patriarchal church is a full-grown form of an Eastern Catholic church. It is 'a community of the Christian faithful joined together by' a Patriarchal hierarchy. The Patriarch together with the synod of bishops has the legislative, judicial and administrative powers within jurisdictional territory of the patriarchal church, without prejudice to those powers reserved, in
8601-479: The Russian Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Two of them used the recension of the Russian Liturgy as reformed by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in 1666. The other priest used the medieval rite of the Old Believers , that is to say, as the Russian liturgical recension existed before Patriarch Nikon 's reforms of the Russian Liturgy. All Eastern Catholics in the Russian Federation strictly maintain the use of Church Slavonic , although vernacular Liturgies are more common in
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#17327725118628742-406: The Russian Church is dictated by a very old tradition which has its roots in early Christian political philosophy... the Christian Emperor was regarded as the representative of God in the Christian commonwealth, whose duty was to watch not only over the material, but also the spiritual welfare of his Christian subjects. Because of that, his interference in Church affairs was regarded as his duty." This
8883-445: The Russian Church is not what the Slavophiles have imagined, but it is the example of suffering. It is in this way that she shows that she is the continuation of Christ in this world." Missions also continued among White émigrés in the Russian diaspora . Following her conversion, Hélène Iswolsky regularly attended the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Trinity, located near the Porte d'Italie in Paris . She later praised
9024-436: The Russian Church. Jonah's policy as metropolitan was to recover the areas lost to the Uniate church. He was able to include Lithuania and Kiev to his title, but not Galicia . Lithuania was separated from his jurisdiction in 1458, and the influence of Catholicism increased in those regions. As soon as Vasily II heard about the ordination of Gregory as metropolitan of the newly established metropolis of Kiev , he sent
9165-520: The Russian Greek Catholic Church by underground Latin Bishop Pie Eugène Neveu. After Remov's conversion became known to Joseph Stalin 's NKVD , the Archbishop was arrested on 21 February 1935 and was accused of being, "a member of the Catholic group of a counterrevolutionary organization attached to the illegal Petrovsky Monastery " and of anti-Soviet agitation . Exarch Leonid Feodorov died on 14 March 1935 at Viatka , Russia , where he had been assigned to live in internal exile following his release from
9306-500: The Russian Orthodox Church came in 1988, the millennial anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus' . Throughout the summer of that year, major government-supported celebrations took place in Moscow and other cities; many older churches and some monasteries were reopened. An implicit ban on religious propaganda on state TV was finally lifted. For the first time in the history of the Soviet Union , people could watch live transmissions of church services on television. Gleb Yakunin ,
9447-406: The Russian land" and completed the Grand Menaion , which was influential in shaping the narrative tradition of Russian Orthodoxy. In 1589, during the reign of Feodor I and under the direction of Boris Godunov , the metropolitan of Moscow, Job , was consecrated as the first Russian patriarch with the blessing of Jeremias II of Constantinople . In the decree establishing the patriarchate ,
9588-430: The Russicum, met once again in 1948 as fellow political prisoners in the Norillag labor camp region of the Soviet Gulag . Meanwhile, because of the rigorous training and spiritual formation that Anna Abrikosova had given to the surviving sisters of her convent and the converts they made in secret over the decades following their arrests, the Russian Greek Catholic Church continued to exist on Soviet soil among both
9729-455: The Soviet State and it's secret police, the GPU , had no intention of tolerating the possible reunion of East and West, and were especially determined to snuff out all efforts to preserve the continued independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the State's power and control. For this reason, in the spring of 1923, along with multiple codefendants including Archbishop Jan Cieplak and Monsignor Konstanty Budkiewicz , Exarch Leonid Feodorov
9870-417: The Soviet State. According to recent historian Irina Osipova, however, Metropolitan Bartholomew, "could not accept the harsh policy which Sergei adopted after the schism that divided the clergy in two camps. Bartholomew was disturbed by threats to visit punishment on every 'insubordinate' priest and by the mass arrests and sentencing of these recalcitrants." In 1932, Bartholomew Remov was secretly received into
10011-483: The Soviet Union , the surviving Russian Greek Catholics, many of whom were directly connected to the Greek Catholic community of Dominican Sisters founded in August 1917 by Mother Catherine Abrikosova , began to appear in the open. At the same time, the martyrology of the Russian Greek Catholic Church began to be investigated. In 2001, Exarch Leonid Feodorov was beatified during a Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy offered in Lviv by Pope John Paul II . In 2003,
10152-533: The Soviet authorities as a "counter-revolutionary" force and thus subject to suppression and eventual liquidation. In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed. The Soviet Union, formally created in December 1922, was the first state to have elimination of religion as an ideological objective espoused by the country's ruling political party. Toward that end,
10293-433: The Soviet policy vis-a-vis organised religion vacillated over time between, on the one hand, a utopian determination to substitute secular rationalism for what they considered to be an outmoded "superstitious" worldview and, on the other, pragmatic acceptance of the tenaciousness of religious faith and institutions. In any case, religious beliefs and practices did persist, not only in the domestic and private spheres but also in
10434-542: The Soviets, Evlogy was removed from office by Sergius and replaced. Most of Evlogy's parishes in Western Europe remained loyal to him; Evlogy then petitioned Ecumenical Patriarch Photius II to be received under his canonical care and was received in 1931, making a number of parishes of Russian Orthodox Christians outside Russia, especially in Western Europe an Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as
10575-481: The State . For this reason, Patriarch Tikhon was both meeting regularly to discuss possible reunion with both the Exarch and with Father Vladimir Abrikosov . The Patriarch was also urging those Orthodox clergy and laity who remained loyal to him to similarly meet with the Russian Catholics in order to discuss the possible reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Holy See under the terms laid down at
10716-754: The XXXIV Apostolic canon , which led to a split with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia abroad and the Russian True Orthodox Church (Russian Catacomb Church) within the Soviet Union, as they allegedly remained faithful to the Canons of the Apostles, declaring the part of the church led by Metropolitan Sergius schism , sometimes coined Sergianism . Due to this canonical disagreement it
10857-523: The absence of clergy, and defining their own sacred places and forms of piety. Also apparent was the proliferation of what the Orthodox establishment branded as "sectarianism", including both non-Eastern Orthodox Christian denominations, notably Baptists , and various forms of popular Orthodoxy and mysticism. In 1914, there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox churches and 29,593 chapels , 112,629 priests and deacons , 550 monasteries and 475 convents with
10998-512: The approval of "a prudent spiritual director ." On the feast of St. Dominic in August 1917, Anna Abrikosova took vows as a Dominican sister, assuming at that time her religious name in honor of Catherine of Siena , and founded a Greek-Catholic religious congregation of the Order in her Moscow apartment. Several of the women among the secular tertiaries joined her in taking vows as well. Thus
11139-755: The authority of the Pope of Rome as defined by Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches . Russian Catholics historically had their own episcopal hierarchy in the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Russia and the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin , China . However, these offices are currently vacant. In 1928, Pope Pius XI founded the Collegium Russicum , whose graduates have included Walter Ciszek , Pietro Leoni , and Theodore Romzha , as
11280-597: The authority of the monarch. He was also inspired by church–state relations in the West and therefore brought the institutional structure of the church in line with other ministries. Theophan Prokopovich wrote Peter's Spiritual Regulation , which no longer legally recognized the separation of the church and the state. Peter replaced the patriarch with a council known as the Most Holy Synod in 1721, which consisted of appointed bishops, monks, and priests. The church
11421-422: The beginning of autocephaly of the Russian Church. Although not all Russian clergy supported Jonah, the move was subsequently justified in the Russian point of view following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which was interpreted as divine punishment. While it is possible that the failure to obtain the blessing from Constantinople was not intentional, nevertheless, this marked the beginning of independence of
11562-620: The best of taste and according to the strictest Russian religious style; the iconostasis was the work of a Russian painter well-versed in ancient Eastern iconography. The central panel was a faithful copy of Rubleff's Trinity ." In 1928, a second Apostolic Exarchate was set up, for the Russian Greek Catholic refugees in China , based in Manchuria and led by Belarusian missionary priest Fabijan Abrantovich and based from
11703-759: The centuries that followed, as growing numbers of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches fell under the rule of the House of Romanov as a result of the Khmelnytsky Uprising , the Great Northern War , and the Partitions of Poland , they similarly experienced escalating and brutal religious persecution . For example, Tsar Peter the Great , whose anti-Catholicism and control over the Russian Church had already caused
11844-400: The chroniclers of the grand prince, "the princes, the boyars and many others — and especially the Russian bishops — remained silent, slumbered and fell asleep" until "the divinely wise, Christ-loving sovereign, Grand Prince Vasily Vasilyevich shamed Isidor and called him not his pastor and teacher, but a wicked and baneful wolf". Despite the chronicles calling him a heretical apostate , Isidore
11985-468: The common law, to the Roman pontiff (CCEO 55-150). Among the Eastern Catholic Churches the following churches are of patriarchal status: Major archiepiscopal churches are the oriental churches, governed by the major archbishops being assisted by the respective synod of bishops. These churches also have almost the same rights and obligations of Patriarchal Churches. A major archbishop is the metropolitan of
12126-576: The different faiths. After receiving glowing reports about Constantinople, he captured Chersonesus in Crimea and demanded that the sister of Basil II be sent there. The marriage took place on the condition that Vladimir would be also baptized there. Vladimir had lent considerable military support to the Byzantine emperor and may have besieged the city due to it having sided with the rebellious Bardas Phokas . After Kiev lost its significance following
12267-460: The dissident movement intending to better fulfil his calling as a priest, there was a spiritual link between Men and many of the dissidents. For some of them he was a friend; for others, a godfather; for many (including Yakunin ), a spiritual father. According to Metropolitan Vladimir , by 1988 the number of functioning churches in the Soviet Union had fallen to 6,893 and the number of functioning convents and monasteries to just 21. In 1987 in
12408-526: The ensuing chaos as a means of entering the U.S.S.R. incognito with the intention of running clandestine apostolates there. All were captured almost immediately, having been betrayed by Alexander Kurtna , a convert from Estonian Orthodoxy , former Russicum seminarian, and NKVD mole , who worked between 1940 and 1944 as a lay translator for the Vatican 's Congregation for the Eastern Churches . Ironically, Kurtna and Fr. Walter Ciszek, who had been friend at
12549-586: The faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life Church documents such as the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches apply the Latin term sui iuris to the particular Churches that are together
12690-639: The fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, enjoy various degrees of self-government, albeit short of the status of formal ecclesiastical autonomy. The ROC should also not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (or ROCOR, also known as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), headquartered in the United States . The ROCOR was instituted in the 1920s by Russian communities outside
12831-634: The following: Other than the above-mentioned three forms of sui iuris churches there are some other sui iuris ecclesiastical communities. It is "a Church sui iuris which is neither patriarchal nor major archiepiscopal nor Metropolitan, and is entrusted to a hierarch who presides over it in accordance with the norm of common law and the particular law established by the Roman Pontiff" (CCEO. 174). The following churches are of this juridical status: The Catholic Church in Georgia used to be able to do
12972-419: The former Bishop inside his cell. Metropolitan Philip was canonized in 1636 and is still commemorated within the Orthodox Church as a, "pillar of orthodoxy, fighter for the truth, shepherd who laid down his life for his flock." Within the Russian Greek Catholic Church, Blessed Leonid Feodorov , the 20th century Exarch of Russia, is known to have had a very deep devotion to Metropolitan St. Philip of Moscow. Over
13113-557: The foundation for the Dormition Cathedral was laid and Peter was buried there. By choosing to reside and be buried in Moscow, Peter had designated Moscow as the future center of the Russian Orthodox Church. Peter was succeeded by Theognostus , who, like his predecessor, pursued policies that supported the rise of the Moscow principality. During the first four years of his tenure, the Dormition Cathedral
13254-469: The general population, large numbers remained religious. Some Orthodox believers and even priests took part in the dissident movement and became prisoners of conscience . The Orthodox priests Gleb Yakunin , Sergiy Zheludkov and others spent years in Soviet prisons and exile for their efforts in defending freedom of worship. Among the prominent figures of that time were Dmitri Dudko and Aleksandr Men . Although he tried to keep away from practical work of
13395-406: The insistence of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1901, Metropolitan Andrey's interest in the Russian people continued. Posing as a Ukrainian lawyer on a pleasure trip, he made a secret visit to the Russian Empire in 1907, which he used as a cover for meeting and attempting to convert senior Russian Orthodox and Old Believer clergy. Tsarist policy of persecuting Eastern Catholics continued unchecked until
13536-538: The inspiration of poet and philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853–1900). Inspired by the writings of Fr. Ivan Gagarin , who had sought to win over the Russian Orthodox Church to reunification with the Holy See without abandoning either the Byzantine Rite or the traditional Old Church Slavonic liturgical language and the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri , Solovyov argued that, just as
13677-412: The jurisdiction of Constantinople to that of Moscow. The handover brought millions of faithful and half a dozen dioceses under the ultimate administrative care of the patriarch of Moscow, and later of the Holy Synod of Russia, leading to a significant Ukrainian presence in the Russian Church, which continued well into the 18th century. The exact terms and conditions of the handover of the metropolis remains
13818-667: The jurisdiction of the respective local Latin Church bishops. The communities in Denver, Dublin, and Singapore do not have a Russian national character but exist for local Catholics who wish to worship in the Russo-Byzantine style. The community in Denver is currently under the jurisdiction of the Ruthenian Eparchy of Phoenix. In a 2005 article, Russian Catholic priest Fr. Sergei Golovanov stated that three Russian Greek Catholic priests served on Russian soil celebrating
13959-591: The lack of historical evidence supporting this narrative, modern church historians in Russia have often incorporated this tale into their studies. In the 10th century, Christianity began to take root in Kievan Rus' . Towards the end of the reign of Igor , Christians are mentioned among the Varangians . In the text about the treaty with the Byzantine Empire in 944–945, the chronicler also records
14100-578: The last Byzantine emperor, and the defeat of the Tatars, helped to solidify this view. By the turn of the 16th century, the consolidation of Orthodoxy in Russia continued as Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod created the first complete manuscript translation of the Bible into Church Slavonic in 1499, known as Gennady's Bible . At the same time, two movements within the Russian Church had emerged with differing ecclesial visions. Nilus of Sora (1433–1508) led
14241-463: The line that we need at the Council". A new and widespread persecution of the church was subsequently instituted under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. A second round of repression, harassment and church closures took place between 1959 and 1964 when Nikita Khrushchev was in office. The number of Orthodox churches fell from around 22,000 in 1959 to around 8,000 in 1965; priests, monks and faithful were killed or imprisoned and
14382-430: The matter of creating an underground Byzantine Catholic Church in the Russian Empire was discussed at length. After being asked, the Pope confirmed Metropolitan Andrey's belief that he, instead of the local Roman Rite Bishops, already held jurisdiction over all Byzantine Catholics living under Tsarism . In order to spread the Catholic Church in Russia , the Pope also granted Sheptytsky all the authority of an Patriarch of
14523-613: The nature of the matter" (CCEO.151, 152). Following are the Major Archiepiscopal Churches: A sui iuris church which is governed by a Metropolitan (Bishop) is called a metropolitan church sui iuris . "A Metropolitan Church sui iuris is presided over by the Metropolitan of a determined see who has been appointed by the Roman Pontiff and is assisted by a council of hierarchs according to the norm of law" (CCEO. 155§1). The Catholic metropolitan churches are
14664-917: The now ruined St. Vladimir's Cathedral in Harbin ; the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin . Exarch Fabijan was arrested, however, by the NKVD after a visit to his family in the Second Polish Republic was interrupted by the beginning of the Second World War . After Exarch Fabijan was martyred in the Gulag , the Harbin Exarchate fell under the Omophorion of Exarchs Vendelín Javorka [ cs ] and Andrzej Cikoto , who both ultimately faced highly similar fates to Exarch Fabijan. The Collegium Russicum , which
14805-465: The number of functioning monasteries was reduced to less than twenty. Subsequent to Khrushchev's ousting, the Church and the government remained on unfriendly terms until 1988. In practice, the most important aspect of this conflict was that openly religious people could not join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , which meant that they could not hold any political office. However, among
14946-715: The oath-taking ceremony that took place in Constantinople for Igor's envoys as well as the equivalent ceremony that took place in Kiev. Igor's wife Olga was baptized sometime in the mid-10th century; however, scholars have disputed the exact year and place of her conversion, with dates ranging from 946 to 960. Most scholars tend to agree that she was baptized in Constantinople, though some argue that her conversion took place in Kiev. Olga's son Sviatoslav opposed conversion, despite persuasion from his mother, and there
15087-429: The opinion of a major part of the church's parishes, in 1927 issued a declaration accepting the Soviet authority over the church as legitimate, pledging the church's cooperation with the government and condemning political dissent within the church. By this declaration, Sergius granted himself authority that he, being a deputy of imprisoned Metropolitan Peter and acting against his will, had no right to assume according to
15228-521: The pastor, Mgr. Alexander Evreinov , in her memoirs. Mgr. Alexander, Iswolsky wrote, offered the Byzantine Rite without the liturgical latinisations commonly added in Galicia and, "one might have thought oneself at an Orthodox service, except that prayers were offered for the Pope and our hierarchical head, the Archbishop of Paris." Iswolsky added that the chapel, although humble, "was decorated in
15369-532: The patriarch of "defiling the faith" and "pouring wrathful fury upon the Russian land". The result was a schism , with those who resisted the new practices being known as the Old Believers . In the aftermath of the Treaty of Pereyaslav , the Ottomans , supposedly acting on behalf of the Russian regent Sophia Alekseyevna , pressured the patriarch of Constantinople into transferring the metropolis of Kiev from
15510-481: The peasantry, there was widespread interest in spiritual-ethical literature and non-conformist moral-spiritual movements, an upsurge in pilgrimage and other devotions to sacred spaces and objects (especially icons), persistent beliefs in the presence and power of the supernatural (apparitions, possession, walking-dead, demons, spirits, miracles and magic), the renewed vitality of local "ecclesial communities" actively shaping their own ritual and spiritual lives, sometimes in
15651-427: The priestly families of their diocese. In 1909, a volume of essays appeared under the title Vekhi ("Milestones" or "Landmarks"), authored by a group of leading left-wing intellectuals, including Sergei Bulgakov , Peter Struve and former Marxists . It is possible to see a similarly renewed vigor and variety in religious life and spirituality among the lower classes, especially after the upheavals of 1905. Among
15792-493: The religious freedom experienced after the fall of Communism, there were calls from Russian Greek Catholic clergy and laity to for a new Exarch to the long existing vacancy. Such a move would have been strongly objected to by the Russian Orthodox Church, which caused Cardinal Walter Kasper to repeatedly persuade Pope John Paul II to refuse out of concern for damaging ecumenism . For the same reason, Cardinal Kasper repeatedly told Russian Catholics to their faces to either switch to
15933-550: The renovated Orthodox doctrine, including that of sobornost . The resurgence of Eastern Orthodoxy was reflected in Russian literature, an example is the figure of Starets Zosima in Fyodor Dostoyevsky 's Brothers Karamazov . In the Russian Orthodox Church, the clergy , over time, formed a hereditary caste of priests . Marrying outside of these priestly families was strictly forbidden; indeed, some bishops did not even tolerate their clergy marrying outside of
16074-677: The reunion decrees of the Council of Florence , and his replacement by Metropolitan Jonah . It was only then that the Church in Rus' became definitively schismatic and non-Catholic. The schism was further cemented in 1588, when the Metropolitan See of Moscow was raised to a patriarchate by the Ecumenical Patriarch. By this time, the separation had become so complete that both churches accused each other of being heretics. Out of all Eastern Orthodox Churches, what Max Weber
16215-612: The same Tsar and Theophan Prokopovich , as part of their Church reforms , replaced the Patriarch of Moscow with a department of the civil service headed by an Ober-Procurator and called the Most Holy Synod , which oversaw the appointment and deposition of the Church Hierarchy, as a further extension of the Tsar's Government. Meanwhile, with the grudging exception of the Armenian Catholic Church ,
16356-581: The scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognized its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war. The Russian Orthodox church was drastically weakened in May 1922, when the Renovated (Living) Church , a reformist movement backed by the Soviet secret police, broke away from Patriarch Tikhon (also see the Josephites and the Russian True Orthodox Church ),
16497-458: The secret authority granted to him by Pope Pius X in 1907 and 1908. During the Council, the Metropolitan organized the first Apostolic Exarchate for Russian Catholics with Most Reverend Leonid Feodorov , formerly a Russian Orthodox seminarian , as the first Exarch . On 19 May 1917, Vladimir Abrikosov , who along with his wife Anna Abrikosova , had long been the driving force behind the formerly underground Russian Catholic parish in Moscow,
16638-465: The sisters and the laity, even when there were no longer any Russian Catholic priests left to administer the Sacraments. This continued until 1979, when the surviving Sisters arranged for Soviet Jewish convert and former Jazz saxophonist Georgii Davidovich Friedmann to be secretly and illegally ordained by a Bishop of the underground Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church . Following the collapse of
16779-464: The starving. Fr. Walsh enthusiastically agreed with the Exarch's idea and ensured that it was carried out. In Orenburg alone, his assistant, Fr. Louis J. Gallagher hosted six local Russian Orthodox bishops to his table to organize the delivery of food supplies to the starving. Meanwhile, according to historian Edward E. Roslof, to a much greater extent than the Rurikid and Romanov Tsars before them,
16920-540: The state for support. The late 18th century saw the rise of starchestvo under Paisiy Velichkovsky and his disciples at the Optina Monastery . This marked a beginning of a significant spiritual revival in the Russian Church after a lengthy period of modernization, personified by such figures as Demetrius of Rostov and Platon of Moscow . Aleksey Khomyakov , Ivan Kireevsky and other lay theologians with Slavophile leanings elaborated some key concepts of
17061-487: The term from Medieval Latin, and so spells it sui juris . Jus novum ( c. 1140 -1563) Jus novissimum ( c. 1563 -1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of
17202-411: The territories controlled by Bolsheviks was effectively reduced to services and sermons inside church buildings. The Decree and attempts by Bolshevik officials to requisition church property caused sharp resentment on the part of the ROC clergy and provoked violent clashes on some occasions: on 1 February (19 January O.S.), hours after the bloody confrontation in Petrograd's Alexander Nevsky Lavra between
17343-501: The war effort. In the early hours of 5 September 1943, Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexius (Simansky) and Nicholas (Yarushevich) had a meeting with Stalin and received permission to convene a council on 8 September 1943, which elected Sergius Patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus'. This is considered by some as violation of the Apostolic canon , as no church hierarch could be consecrated by secular authorities. A new patriarch
17484-564: The whole Russian tsardom is called a "third Rome". By the mid-17th century, the religious practices of the Russian Orthodox Church were distinct from those of the Greek Orthodox Church . Patriarch Nikon reformed the church in order to bring most of its practices back into accommodation with the contemporary forms of Greek Orthodox worship. Nikon's efforts to correct the translations of texts and institute liturgical reforms were not accepted by all. Archpriest Avvakum accused
17625-536: The world needed the Tsar as a universal monarch, the Church needed the Pope of Rome as a universal ecclesiastical hierarch. Solovyov further argued, however, that the Russian Orthodox Church, "is only separated from Rome de facto , so that one can profess the totality of Catholic doctrine while continuing to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church." On August 9, 1894, a Russian Orthodox priest and protegé of Solovyov, Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy , entered into full communion with
17766-649: The world on the occasion of the canonization of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Pope chose to place the Russicum under her patronage. The Russicum faculty included the prominent Russian Symbolist poet, literary scholar , and Catholic convert Vyacheslav Ivanov . Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox Archbishop Bartholomew Remov had at first supported the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Metropolitan Sergei 's 1927 declaration of loyalty to
17907-652: Was ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church . Even though the ordination of married men to the priesthood is allowed by the canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches , the Abrikosovs had already taken a vow of chastity in a ritual which the rule of the Dominican Third Order at the time only very rarely permitted to married couples and only after first receiving
18048-604: Was a community of the Dominican Third Order Regular, with Father Vladimir Abrikosov as its chaplain, established in what was soon to be Soviet Russia. Mother Catherine took as her motto in the religious life, "Christ did not come down from the Cross, they took Him down dead." According to Father Georgii Friedman, Mother Catherine and the Sisters made an unusual choice for a religious community, inspired, it
18189-475: Was almost certainly with these events in mind that Leonid Feodorov , the future Greek Catholic Exarch of Russia and Belarus , predicted at Anagni to a fellow Catholic seminarian more than a decade before the fall of the House of Romanov , "Russia will not repent without travelling the Red Sea of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles." The modern Russian Catholic Church owes much to
18330-572: Was also overseen by an ober-procurator that would directly report to the emperor. Peter's reforms marked the beginning of the Synodal period of the Russian Church, which would last until 1917. In order to make monasticism more socially useful, Peter began the processes that would eventually lead to the large-scale secularization of monastic landholdings in 1764 under Catherine II . 822 monasteries were closed between 1701 and 1805, and monastic communities became highly regulated, receiving funds from
18471-902: Was appointed by Pope John Paul II as ordinary for all non- Armenian Catholic Church Eastern Catholics in the Russian Federation . By 2010, five parishes had been registered with civil authorities in Siberia , while in Moscow two parishes and a pastoral center operate without official registration. There are also communities in Saint Petersburg and Obninsk . In the Russian diaspora , there are Russian Catholic parishes and faith communities in San Francisco , New York City, El Segundo , Denver , Melbourne , Buenos Aires , Dublin , Paris , Chevetogne , Lyon , Munich , Rome , Milan , and Singapore . Many are all under
18612-406: Was completed and an additional four stone churches were constructed in Moscow. By the end of 1331, Theognostus was able to restore ecclesiastical control over Lithuania. Theognostus also proceeded with the canonization of Peter in 1339, which helped to increase Moscow's prestige. His successor Alexius lost ecclesiastical over Lithuania in 1355, but kept the traditional title. On 5 July 1439, at
18753-519: Was elected, theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function. The Moscow Theological Academy Seminary , which had been closed since 1918, was re-opened. In December 2017, the Security Service of Ukraine lifted classified top secret status of documents revealing that the NKVD of the USSR and its units were engaged in the selection of candidates for participation in
18894-430: Was founded on August 15, 1929 by Pope Pius XI , was intended to train Russian Greek Catholic priests to serve as missionaries in the growing Russian diaspora of anti-communist political refugees and, despite the anti-religious persecution taking place in the Soviet Union , in that very country. The money for the college building and its reconstruction was taken from an aggregate of charity donations from faithful all over
19035-461: Was immediately implemented. Despite his efforts to maintain a purely apolitical stance, Metropolitan Andrey almost immediately became one of the many Habsburg loyalists, Ukrainophile intellectuals, and clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who were arrested by the Tsarist secret police and deported to Siberia . Despite angry questions being raised about his incarceration by members of
19176-418: Was later to dub Caesaropapism reached its greatest extreme in the Tsardom of Russia , beginning when Ivan IV the Terrible assumed the title Czar in 1547 and gutted the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from control by the State. During a speech at the St. Procopius Unionistic Congress in 1959, Fr. John Dvornik explained, "...the attitude of all Orthodox Churches toward the State, especially
19317-411: Was only metropolitanate in the Orthodox oikoumene that remained politically independent. The formulation of the idea of Moscow as the " third Rome " is primarily associated with the monk Philotheus of Pskov , who stated that "Moscow alone shines over all the earth more radiantly than the sun" because of its fidelity to the faith. The marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Palaiologina , the niece of
19458-425: Was only over the centuries following the Great Schism in 1054 that anti-Papal and anti-Catholic beliefs grew as a result of the Church in Rus strengthening its alliance with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople . In 1441, however, Grand Prince Vasily II of Moscow embraced Caesaropapism by ordering the imprisonment of Isidore of Kiev , the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' , for attempting to implement
19599-423: Was prosecuted for counterrevolution and anti-Soviet agitation by Nikolai Krylenko . Feodorov was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in the Soviet concentration camps at Solovki , located above the Arctic Circle in the former Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea . During a conversation inside the anti-religious museum at Solovki with fellow Russian Greek Catholic political prisoner Julia Danzas ,
19740-434: Was recognized as the lawful metropolitan by Vasily II until he left Moscow on 15 September 1441. For the following seven years, the seat of the metropolitan remained vacant. Vasily II defeated the rebellious Dmitry Shemyaka and returned to Moscow in February 1447. On 15 December 1448, a council of Russian bishops elected Jonah as metropolitan, without the consent of the patriarch of Constantinople, which marked
19881-463: Was selected as the first Russian Patriarch after about 200 years of Synodal rule. In early February 1918, the Bolshevik-controlled government of Soviet Russia enacted the Decree on separation of church from state and school from church that proclaimed separation of church and state in Russia, freedom to "profess any religion or profess none", deprived religious organisations of the right to own any property and legal status. Legal religious activity in
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