The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches by number of adherents. The primate of the ROC is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'.
The history of the ROC begins with the Christianization of Kievan Rus', which commenced in 988 with the baptism of Vladimir the Great and his subjects by the clergy of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Starting in the 14th century, Moscow served as the primary residence of the Russian metropolitan. The ROC declared autocephaly in 1448 when it elected its own metropolitan without Constantinople's blessing. In 1589, the metropolitan see was elevated to a patriarchate with the consent of Constantinople. In the mid-17th century, liturgical reforms led to the Schism of the Russian Church, with opponents forming the Old Believers movement. In 1721, Peter the Great abolished the patriarchate and established the Most Holy Synod, which governed the church until the patriarchate was restored in 1917. Under Soviet state atheism, the church was heavily persecuted, but it experienced a major revival beginning in the late 1980s.
The ROC claims canonical jurisdiction over Eastern Orthodox Christians in most of the former Soviet republics, excluding Georgia. Its autonomous branches include the Japanese Orthodox Church and the Chinese Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), established by émigrés in the 1920s, reconciled with Moscow in 2007 as a self-governing body. This jurisdiction has faced significant disputes: in 2018, the ROC severed communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople after the latter recognized the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church declared its independence from the Moscow Patriarchate.
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