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The Russian Orthodox Church traces its roots to the Baptism of Kiev in 988, when Prince Vladimir I officially adopted the religion of Byzantium as the state religion of the Rus' state. Thus, in 1988, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated its millennial anniversary. It therefore traces its apostolic succession through the Patriarch of Constantinople.
The Church was originally a subsidiary of the Patrarchate of Constantinople and the Byzantine patriarch appointed the metropolitan who governed the Church of Rus'. The Metropolitan moved from the Rus' capital of Kiev to Suzdal, then to Vladimir, then to Moscow in 1326 following Kiev's devastation by the Mongols.
In 1439Events Battle of Grotnik, which ended the hussite movement in Poland Eric of Pomerania, King of Sweden, Denmark and Norway is declared deposed in Sweden. Karl Knutsson Bonde continues to serve as Regent of Sweden November 12 In England, Plymouth becomes t at the Council of Florence, a meeting of the Catholic and Orthodox Church leaders agreed upon terms of reunification of the two branches of Christianity. The Russian people, however, rejected the concessions to the Catholics and Metropolitan Isidore was expelled from his position. The Russian Church remains independent from the VaticanThe term Holy See ( Latin: Sancta Sedes lit. holy seat") refers in a geographic sense to the episcopal see of Rome, of which the Pope is the ordinary i. the diocesan bishop); in canon law, the terms Holy See and Apostolic See refer to the Pope ("Roman Pon.
In 1448Events January 5/ 6 Christopher of Bavaria, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden dies with no designated heir leaving all three kingdoms with vacant thrones. Brothers Bengt Jonsson Oxenstierna and Nils Jonsson Oxenstierna are selected to serve as Co-Regents, the Russian Church became independent from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Metropolitan JonasJonas in Russian) (? ? 1461), Metropolitan of Moscow since 1448. Since the late 1420s, Jonas had been living in the Simonov Monastery. He was close to Metropolitan Photius, who would make him Bishop of Ryazan and Murom. After Photius's death in 1431, Gran, installed by the Council of Russian bishops in 1448, was given the title of Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus'. This was just five years before the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
In 1589, Metropolitan Job of Moscow became the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'; making the Russian Church autocephalous. The other Eastern patriarchs recognized the Moscow patriarchate as fifth in honor.
In 1652, Patriarch Nikon attempted to centralize power that had been distributed locally while conforming Russian Orthodox rites and rituals to those of the Greek Orthodox Church. For instance he insisted that Russians cross themselves with three fingers, rather than the traditional two. This aroused great antipathy among a large section of the population who saw the changed rites both as heresy and as a pretext for Nikon's usurpation of power. This group became known as the Old Believers and they reject the teachings of the new Patriarch. Tsar Aleksey (who was simultaneously centralizing political power) upheld Nikon's changes, however, and the Old Believers were persecuted until the reign of Peter the Great who agreed to let them practice their distinct flavour of Orthodoxy.
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church experienced phenomenal growth. In the 1686, the Metropolia of Kiev was transferred from Constantinople to Moscow bringing millions more faithful and a half dozen dioceses under the general control of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch. In the following two centuries, missionary efforts stretched out across Siberia into Alaska, then into the United States at California. Eminent people on that missionary effort included Innocent of Irkutsk, Herman of Alaska, Innocent of Sibelia and Alaska. They learned local languages and translated the gospels and the hymns. Sometimes those translations required the invention of a new system of transcription.
In 1700 following Patriarch Adrian 's death, Peter the Great prevented a successor from being named, and in 1721 he established the Holy and Supreme Synod to govern the church instead of a single primate (see Caesaropapism). This was the situation until shortly after the Russian Revolution in 1917, at which time the bishops elected a new patriarch, Patriarch Tikhon.