Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church

Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
Acronym(s)	ROAC
Origin	ROCOR
Founded	1994
Current primate	Met. Theodore of Suzdal & Vladimir
Headquarters	Suzdal
Territory	Russia, Americas, Europe
Liturgical language(s)	Russian/local
Musical tradition	Slavic
Bishops	9
Parishes	200+
Monasteries
Official website	www.roacusa.org/

(ROAC) Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, previously known as the FROC (Free Russian Orthodox Church), is a True Orthodox Church with a base in Suzdal, Russia. ROAC has parishes across Russia, Europe, Africa, and North America. ROAC's founding occurred as a result of ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) ordaining bishops for Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s for mostly catacomb Orthodox Christians who did not want to be part of the Moscow Patriarchate. Currently, the president of the synod of bishops is Metropolitan Theodore of Suzdal and Vladimir.

History of ROAC

After the tumultuous early years following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church was in disarray as her adherents either went underground, capitulated to the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) or the Living Church, or were scattered abroad throughout the world. However, by 1927 the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) had established a workable synod of bishops and a synodal headquarters in New York. This new temporary Church higher authority formally broke communion with the MP; viewing the Catacomb Church in Russia as the only legitimate Church.

With the collapse of the Soviet Communist government in Russia in the early 1990s and the establishment of the Russian Federation, new religious freedoms were guaranteed by the new constitution. Many Orthodox Christians who had hidden their faith (Catacomb Christians) as well as members who had been with the MP who felt that the MP was not the true Church began to organize themselves into new independent religions organizations. Among these pockets of Christians emerged a few leaders that began to attract a following. Among these were two monastics who made an appeal to the ROCOR for assistance in establishing a Russian Orthodox Church inside of Russian and free of the MP: Archimandrite Lazarus (Zhurkenko) and Archimandrite Valentine (Rusantsev).

In 1990, the ROCOR synod approved the episcopal consecration of Archimandrite Valentine. On February 10, 1991, Bishop Valentine was consecrated in St. Job the Much-Suffering church in Brussels, Belgium. His consecrators being Archbishop Anthony (Bartoshevich) of Geneva and Western Europe, Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin and Germany, Bishop Barnabas (Prokofiev) of Cannes and Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) of Washington. Bishop Valentine's episcopal see was Suzdal and Vladimir. After this thousands of faithful, forming hundreds of parishes, began to come to the newly organized Free Russian Orthodox Church (FROC).

Trouble with ROCOR Leadership

Almost as soon as the synod of ROCOR began to assist the fledgling FROC, a struggle began for the future direction of ROCOR. Two diametrically opposed camps were forming: those who wanted nothing to do with the MP, and those who felt that ROCOR should work toward unity with the MP.

"The problems began on May 3/16, 1990, when the ROCOR Synod under the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) issued a statement that was in general strongly anti-MP, but which contained the qualification that there might nevertheless be true priests dispensing valid sacraments in the patriarchate. The idea that there can be true priests in a heretical church is canonical nonsense (Apostolic Canon 46, First Canonical Epistle of St. Basil the Great), and Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) immediately obtained the removal of the offending phrase. But the damage had been done.".

Bishop Valentine of Suzdal and Vladimir was an outspoken critic of the idea of dialogue with the MP. This caused two major problems for the pro-MP element of ROCOR: 1) If the ROCOR was going to acknowledge the MP as having been the rightful Church of Russia all along, then ROCOR had made a serious canonical infraction having ordained bishops for sees that existed in the MP (e.g., the MP already had an archbishop of Vladimir and Suzdal), 2) having such outspoken opponents to such a union within the Russian homeland would likely derail any possible agreement. To alieviate this crisis, and using Bishop Valentine's ill health as a pretense, in 1993 the ROCOR synod forced him into retirement (a tactic repeated with another anti-MP bishop Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles).

In 1994, the situation was beginning to come to a head with the ROCOR synod coming into communion with the “Cyprianite” Greek Old Calendarists (aka. Synod in Resistance SiR). The leader of the Cyprianites, Metropolitan Cyprian (Kotsumbas) of Fili and Orope, held a strange ecclesiological view that the World Orthodox and the True Orthodox consisted of one Church; albeit with the True Orthodox being the "healthy" part and the ecumenist, modernist Greek State Church being the "sick" or "ailing" part of the Church. For this heretical ecclesiology, Cyprian had been defrocked by the True Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop Chrysostomos (Kiousis) of Athens in 1986. Many in ROCOR felt that this union with SiR was the groundwork being laid to eventually create a union with the MP, i.e., that the MP, although wrong about its submission to the Communist Government (Sergianism) and membership in the World Council of Churches (WCC) (Ecumenism), was still part of the True Church. This was a turn off to many within the FROC since most of her members had either refused to join the MP or had left the MP for FROC.

FROC-ROAC and ROCOR Sever Ties

With the lack of support from the ROCOR synod, the FROC had to re-register itself with the Russian government, now calling itself the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC).

Despite the objections of some ROCOR bishops, not the least of which was the secretary of the synod Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), the ROCOR synod decided in 1994 at the Hierarchal Council in Lesna to initiate negotiations with the MP. Bishop Valentine, still very much the leader of the FROC, sought to make peace with ROCOR and attended the meeting. He asked to discuss the decision to unite with the SiR, as none of the bishops in Russia had been present to vote on the action. However, the synod refused to allow any discussion.

A few months following the Lesna council (February 1995), the ROCOR synod imposed bans on the Russian hierarchs for having refused to abide by the ROCOR synod's decision to open talks with the MP. "The members of the Synod, exceeding their authority, since such decisions are in the competence of the Sobor, decided, by means of canonical bans, to confirm their sole authority over the whole of Russia both historical Russia and Russia abroad. The very foundations of the Church Abroad as a part of the Russian Church living abroad were trampled on, and the Synod on its own initiative ascribed to itself the rights and prerogatives of the Local Russian Church." This event caused the final break of the ROAC with ROCOR, the latter eventually capitulating to the MP in 2007.

External Links

roacusa.org