Russian church

The church of Moscow and all Rus or Russian church is an autocephalous Orthodox church originated in Russia but extends to other nations. Shares the tradition and doctrine with other Eastern Orthodox churches however had been in conflict many times.

Origin
Saint Andrew visits Kiev on the first century and plants a cross. Centuries later, Photios I sends bishops from Constantinople to convert the people in Kiev. In 988 Vladimir of Kiev is converted to Christianity so he evangelizes the Kievan Rus in the same way that Constantine did in Rome.

Metropolitan of Kiev
The church of Kiev was under the jurisdiction of Contantinople as the Metropolitan of Kiev. During the Mongol invations the metropolitan fleed to  Vladimir.

Church of Moscow
St Peter of Moscow moved the church from Vladimir to Moscow stablishing it as the spiritual capital. After the fall of constantinople the  Metropolitan of Moscow (Still called Metropolitan of Kiev at the time) had de facto independence and autonomy.

Meanwhile in Kiev
In the Council of Florence many representants of the Orthodox Church signed with the pope, this action was not recognized by most of the Orthodox world. As such many orthodox cossacks in the Polish-Lithianian commomwealth formed the Zaporizhian Host to counter the Polish oppression and persecution by the Union of Brest which became one of the reasons that led to the Khmelnytsky Uprising. After the interversion of the Tsardom of Russia, the orthodox churches in Kiev went under temporal Moscow juristiction.

Church of Moscow
After all of this, the church of Moscow is formed without permission from Constantinople and the bishop of Kiev became the Patriarch of Moscow and Rus. At this time the church and the state were equal. In 1589 constantinople finally recognizes Moscow as a valid church.

Nikon's reformations
In times of huge pan-Orthodoxism and pan-Slavism the patriarch Nikon decided to do a reform in 1658 that fixed some discrepancies in order to be more aligned with the Constantinople. Because of this many Russian reactionaries decided to separate forming the Old believers who stick to the original liturgy and doctrine.

Apostolic Governing Synod
The Tsar Peter I decided to reform the church in order to gain more power, so he decided to replace the patriarch with a coucil composed of Monks, this was a political action taken to enforce Russia's European interesets. During this period the Tsar was the defender of Orthodoxy, also a new version of the bible (QEB) was created.

Molokans
See Molokanball for more information Due to the secularization and the protestant reform there was a sect of spiritual christians (initially Nestoarian) known as  Molokians. Alongside their spirituality they hold many Quakerist beliefs and as such they were condemned as heretical by the church.

Expansion
In the 18th century the Tsar decides to send missionaries (between them Philothei of Tobolsk and All Siberia) to convert the Siberian people.

Russian civil war
During the first world war, the Bolsheviks and other groups went agaisnt the weaken Russian empire. This violent period led to the destructuring of the church. On this time St Tikhon is made the patriarch while others form the Orthodox Church outside of Russia in the Russian diaspora.

Communist rule
The separation between the church and the state plus the Christian persecution by the communist state led to conflicts between the state and the people. The soviet secret police tried to reform the Orthodox Church creating the Renovationist church (officially Orthodox church) in 1922 with both liturgical and doctrinal changes to enforce the socialist cuadricula on Christians. This didn't work and in 1943 the project was abandoned going back to a weaken church.

End of the soviet union
With the fall of the soviet union, the church took back some of his relevancy. However they still had problems with the Russian Orthodox Church outisde of Russia which didn't recognized the patriarch. This period had many conflicts between the Constantinople and  over the Baltic nations (specially  Estonia and the  Latvian church) and led to a temporal schism.

True Russian Orthodox Church
In 2007 a sect formed called "Heavenly Jerusalem" or True Russian Orthodox church that didn't trust the current Russian goverment, concidered that the passports had satanic symbols and that the TV controls your mind. In 2008 according to them the end of the world was near so they hide on a cave. When the authorities arrived they commited mass suicide.

Unification of the Orthodox Church
In 2001-2007 the process of full communion between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia  begin. Some opposed to this considering that the unification was a plan of the Federal Security Service.

Ukraine
Once again, in 2018 Moscow and Constantinople separated due to a conflict over the juristiction of Ukraine. This led to the creation of two Ukranian orthodox churches. This problem however is totally political.

Beliefs
The Russian Orthodox Church has the same beliefs as the rest of eastern orthodox churches. However there's some social and political concepts.

Holy Rus
Russia would always exist and has been the light for the eastern and slavic world.

Tsar, defender of Orthodoxy
The connection between the church and the Russian Empire has always been direct and special, the Russian empire has defended Orthodox Christians since the Kievan Rus. This leaded to the canonization of the Romanovs.

Russia, thrid Rome
Since the fall of Constantinople, Moscow had keep the power and the religion from the Eastern Roman Empire, as such Russia is the successor of Rome.

God
The Holy Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Personality
A Russian patriot that always is in position to defender his church. Is interesed in expanding to other countries.

How to Draw
WIP

Friends

 * [[File:OrthUkr_rus.png]] Churches under Moscow juristiction [[File:OrthEstonia_rus.png]] - As was intended.
 * [[File:OrthSer.png]] Serbian church - Hello fellow Orthodox slav
 * [[File:Rus.png]] Russia - Wide is my Homeland!
 * [[File:Orth_alt.png]] Orthodoxyball - The true church

Frenemies

 * [[File:OrthByz.png]] Constantinople - Now what?
 * [[File:Imperial_cult.png]] Imperial cult - TNO - I think you are taking things to far... based
 * [[File:Slav.png]] Slavicball - It's time to convert you pagan brother.
 * [[File:Vajr.png]] Vajrayanaball - Trust me, the Tsar is descendent of Buddha.

Enemies

 * [[File:Cath_alt.png]] Catholicismball - You heretics need to accept the one true church!
 * [[File:OldOrthRus.png]] Old believersball - Accept that the church had mistakes!
 * [[File:Mol.png]] Molokanball - Spiritual christianity? Is this Gnosticism or what?
 * [[File:ProRus.png]] Strigolnikiball - HERETIC!