ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad under Metropolitan Agathangelos ( ) is an Orthodox Church in Russia, Ukraine, the USA and other countries. It is not recognized as canonical by most Orthodox churches.

Structures

The church has 16 eparchies with about 100 congregations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Norway, Germany, USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Tunisia, Israel and Australia. It includes several monasteries and a spiritual seminary in Odessa. It is based in Odessa in Ukraine and in New York. The chief is Metropolitan Agathangelos.

The Church is in communion with the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece (Chrysostom Synod), the Orthodox Old Calendar Church of Romania and the Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church.

Teaching and practice
The Church is orthodox in teaching and spiritual life. It follows the Byzantine rite in the liturgy and uses the Julian calendar.

It distances itself from the Sergianism of the Russian Orthodox Church in the time of the Soviet Union as too great concessions to the political situation and the ecumenism of the Russian Orthodox Church as too great an approach to the Roman Catholic Church.

History
In 2006, Bishop Agathangelos of Odessa declared the secession of his eparchy from the Russian Orthodox Church abroad after it had decided to merge with the Russian Orthodox Church. It maintained communion with the Orthodox Old Calendar Church of Romania and the Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church, which the Russian Abroad Church had abandoned because of its union with the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2007, Bishop Agathangelos declared his rejection of the official union of the Russian Church abroad with the Russian Orthodox Church. He was joined by many congregations of the Foreign Church in the USA, Western Europe, Russia and other countries.
It was formed the Temporal Higher Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad as a provisional structure. In that year an ecclesial communion with the Greek Synod was concluded in resistance and new bishops consecrated.
In 2008, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was formed abroad.

In the following years, other congregations and clerics joined the church, including Bishop Irenaeus Klippenstein of the Russian True Orthodox Church for Western Europe, based in Cologne.

Since 2015, numerous parishes and clerics have left the church again because of their dissatisfaction with the administration of Metropolitan Agathangelos.

Weblinks
Русская Православная Церковь Заграницей Homepage
Русская Православная Церковь Заграницей (Агафангела) on Hierarchy
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad – Provisional Synod OrthodoxWiki