Structure of the Church

Like the Catholic Church that may be more familiar to western audiences, the Russian church is broken down into smaller forms of organization that fit within each other. However, the Russian Orthodox Church is distinct from Orthodox churches in other countries and further abroad.

The Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox Church in the world, belongs to a group of churches that follow the Eastern Orthodox tradition.  The faith is closely linked to political boundaries, as many nations in the region (Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, etc.) have their own religious structures.  Some former Soviet republics, on the other hand, have branches of the ROC.  There are some tensions between the different organizations, especially with the Estonian church, which proclaimed independance from the Russian one.

The ROC is autocephalous, because the head of the church does not report to any higher official.  A hierarchical strucutre mirrors the Catholic church: parishes fit within 261 eparchies, which are then further organized.  The bishop of Moscow is known as the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', who is the spiritual and political head of the Church.  Thus Moscow is the most important city to the ROC.