The Russian Orthodox Church Today

Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world. Over 90% of ethnic Russians identify themselves as Russian Orthodox. The number of people regularly attending church services is considerably lower, but growing every year. The Church has over 23,000 parishes, 154 bishops, 635 monasteries, and 102 clerical schools in the territory of former Soviet Union and has a well-established presence in many other countries all over the World. In recent years some of the church buildings were officially returned to the Church, most of these being in a deteriorated condition.

Since 2002, when Patriarch Alexius II condemned the Vatican's creation of a Catholic diocesan structure for Russian territory, there have been difficulties in the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican. The leadership of the Russian Church saw this action as a throwback to prior attempts by the Vatican to proselytize the Russian Orthodox faithful to become Roman Catholic. This point of view is based upon the stance of the Russian Orthodox Church (and the Eastern Orthodox Church) that the Church of Rome is but one of many equal Christian organizations, and that as such it is straying into the territory, which was already christianized by the Christian Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, while acknowledging the primacy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia, believes that the small Catholic minority in Russia, in continuous existence since at least the 18th century, should be served by a fully developed church hierarchy with a presence and status in Russia.

The issue of encroachment by other Christian denominations into Russia is a particularly sensitive one to many members of the Russian Orthodox Church, since The Russian Orthodox Church has christianized the many peoples inhibiting Russia and was their spiritual Mother for over a thousand years, contributing to the formation of Russia as an organized country and to the development of its great history and culture. Only recently the Church has come out from under considerable persecution during the regime of the Soviet Union. Thus, proselytizing by mostly foreign-based Catholics, Protestant denominations, and by many destructive sects can be seen as taking unfair advantage of the still-recovering condition of the Russian Church, having just come out of 70 years of Communist oppression. On the other hand, smaller religious movements ( particularly, Baptists and members of other Protestant denominations, brought into Russia by western missionaries in the past decade claim that the state provides unfair support to one religion and suppresses others. They refer to the 1997 Russian law, under which, those religious organizations that couldn't provide official proof of their existence for the preceding 15 years were significantly restricted in their rights and abilities to proselytize. The law was formally intended to combat the destructive cults. Nevertheless, it was worded in such a manner that any organisation, no matter how ancient, that couldn't document its presence in the Soviet Union before the fall of Communism was automatically affected by this law. Consequently, this law gave full rights only to a small number of "first-rank" religions, such as Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. The situation is expected to normalise as the 15-year window starts to slide over the post-Communist period.

There is also, due to its deep cultural roots, a noticeable respect of the Church by many members of the Russian government. It is common for the President of Russia to publicly meet with the Patriarch on the Church holidays such as The Holy Pascha (in non-Orthodox Christianity called Easter). Meetings with the representatives of Islam and Buddhism happen less frequently. Catholic and Protestant denominations don't have much merit in Russian history and have a very small presence in the country.

The Russian Orthodox Church should not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (also known as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), which was formed by some Russian communities outside of Russia, which refused to recognize the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church in then-Communist Russia.

Russian Orthodox Church also has a history in China.

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