Russian Orthodox Church

Cathedral of the Armed Forces outside Moscow, completed in 2020.

The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is the official church of the Russian Federation. Patriarch Kirill has held the seat as Primate since 2009.

Two weeks into the NATO war in Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill delivered a sermon excplaining why the Russian intervention into the Ukrainian civil conflict:

Kirill continued: “The demands on many to hold a gay parade are a test of loyalty to that very powerful world; and we know that if people or countries reject these demands, then they do not enter into that world, they become strangers to it.”^[1] Patriarch Kirill has been under sanctions by the globalist-controlled UK government since making those statements.^[2][3]

History[edit]

Though there were already Orthodox Christians in some of the Black Sea ports, and though Viking traders had become Christians in Constantinople and had built some churches along their Volga river trade-route, and though the Polish had begun some missionary activity along the western frontier of the Kievan state, the year conventionally recognized as the establishment of the Church of Russia is 988 when St. Prince Vladimir decreed Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. This church, like many of the Orthodox Churches suffered from Islamic invasion, but also Mongol conquest and most recently, severe persecution under the Communists (though claims have been made that the church often sided with, or at least turned a blind eye to, actions taken by the Communist government). This last persecution produced more than 50 million holy martyrs.

The Russian Orthodox Church has historically clashed with Constantinople over which jurisdiction can declare a church body in a country to be autocephalous (the only matter on which they agree is that a secular government has no power to do so):

• Constantinople takes the position that its Patriarch, as "first among equals", has sole authority to declare a church body as autocephalous.
• Russia takes the position that the Patriarch of any autocephalous church can subsequently declare any church within a country under its geographical jurisdiction to be itself autocephalous.

This disagreement has arisen several times over the years:^[4]

• In 1832 the Greek Orthodox Church was declared autocephalous by the secular Greek government, a move not recognized by Constantinople. However, in 1850 Constantinople did declare the body to be autocephalous, but as it was BOTH within the geographical territory of Constantinople AND declared such by its Patriarch, the overarching issue was not resolved.
• A similar issue took place when the Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romanian bodies were declared autocephalous, as they were in the same situation as the Greek church before.
• In 1917, the Russian Church declared the Georgian Orthodox Church (at that time under its geographical jurisdiction) to be autocephalous, which Constantinople did not recognize at the time, but in 1990 it finally did so.
• In 1970, the Russian Church declared the American Orthodox Church (which is under its geographical jurisdiction) to be autocephalous, a decision Constantinople did not recognize and still does not.

The disagreement has come to the forefront over recognition of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine of the Kiev Patriarchate (OCU) and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC) resulted in break of diplomatic relations between Constantinople and the Moscow Patriarchate in 2019.^[5]

Russian Orthodox theology on salvation, faith and works[edit]

The Orthodox Teaching on personal salvation by Deacon Victor E. Klimenko, Ph.D., a graduate of the Pastoral School of the Chicago and Mid-America of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

Russian identity[edit]

Also, according to a 2019 report "Using data from surveys carried out by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow in 2018, the sociologist Yana Roshchina worked out that while almost 81 percent of adult Russians consider themselves Orthodox, this is often a declaration of identity rather than faith. Just 6 percent of the population and 43 percent of believers go to church several times a month. According to Interior Ministry statistics, 4.3 million people across the country attended Easter services in 2019 – around 100,000 fewer than a year before."^[6]

Western surveys[edit]

Pew Research reported in 2017: "Relatively few Orthodox or Catholic adults in Central and Eastern Europe say they regularly attend worship services, pray often or consider religion central to their lives. For example, a median of just 10% of Orthodox Christians across the region say they go to church on a weekly basis."^[7]

In 2022, it was reported that attendance at Russian Orthodox Church services in Russia has dropped to around one percent.^[8]

See also[edit]

• Secular Europe

References[edit]