Official Record of Apostolic Succession of

The Apostolic Succession from The Russian Orthodox Church
(Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov)
In the ninth century the Rus (or Varangians) became masters of what is now western Russia and the
indigenous Slavic population. Their chief centers of population were Novgorod, in the north, and Kiev, in the
south (now part of the Ukraine). This ruling minority of mostly Swedish Vikings soon adopted the Slavonic
tongue and customs of their subjects.
Tradition credits Saint Andrew The First-Called with planting the seeds of Christianity in the area about
Kiev. These seeds were nurtured by the ministry of Saints Cyril & Methodius, now known as the Apostles
of the Slaves, in The Ukraine beginning in AD 864, using the native language. They invented a Slavic
alphabet (based upon the Greek), which is still used today. The north shore of The Black Sea had been
settled by Christians at least as early as the fourth century. The Khazars, rulers of what is now southern
Russia, had adopted Judaism. However, the missionary efforts supported by Patriarch Photius of
Constantinople to the Khazars was so successful that they soon asked for a Bishop of their own. Just a few
years later Emperor Basil I ("The Macedonian") and Patriarch Ignatius commissioned a missionary Bishop to
the Russians, who made many converts.
The first known Christian ruler over the Kievan State is Saint Olga (Olha), dowager regent, who received
Christian baptism in AD 950. Although she sent to Emperor Otto I of Germany for missionaries, they seemed
to have had no marked success. It is Saint Vladimir (Volodymyr The Great), the grandson of St. Olga, who
accepted baptism himself about AD 986 and then in AD 988 commanded the Christianization of his entire
State, who is recognized as having initiated the conversion of Russia. Although St. Vladimir received
delegates from The Pope and sent representatives to Rome, it was The Church of Constantinople which
won his support. At the time of his death, in AD 1015, there were three bishoprics in his domains; based
upon the foundations laid by St. Vladimir, Christianity continued its gradual, steady spread throughout
Russia. The Metropolitan of Kiev, for centuries the administrative head of The Russian Church, was
appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople; he was usually a Greek, unfamiliar with The Faithful of Russia.
The clergy were poorly trained and almost always too few for the size of the country. The priests were
chosen by their parishioners, while the bishops (a substantial minority of whom were also foreigners with
little understanding of the customs or language of their flocks) were selected by the local princes.
The establishment of an independent Russian Church coincided with the decline of The Byzantine Empire,
and the simultaneous rise of The Russian Empire. This process was helped when Kiev was destroyed
during the Tartar invasion, and the Metropolitan consequently forced to move to Moscow (AD 1320). After
the Grand Duke of Moscow (Ivan III) married a daughter of the nearest relative of the last Emperor of
Constantinople, he claimed to be the legitimate successor of the Byzantine Emperors. He even adopted the
double-headed eagle, symbol of Imperial Byzantine power. Later, beginning in AD 1547, the princes of the
Russian State, as successors of the Byzantine Emperors, began calling themselves Czar (i.e., "Caesar"). It
was only natural that they would seek the prestige of a self-governing independent Church in order to bolster
their own temporal claims. Although the Russian Church claimed autocephaly from AD 1448, when the
Russian Bishops began electing their own Primate (the Metropolitan of Moscow), official recognition of this
independence by the ancient and historic patriarchates was not secured until AD 1590 (one year after
Jeremiah II, Patriarch of Constantinople, was persuaded to invest Iob, the 46th Metropolitan of Moscow, as
the first Russian Patriarch -- although Iob had been promoted to the rank of Patriarch by the Russian
Bishops in AD 1453) at a meeting in Constantinople of all the Patriarchs of the historic Sees. When
Constantinople fell to the Moslems on 29 May 1453, Russia became the only nation where the freedom of
The Orthodox Church remained unrestricted; this favorably influenced their claim for an independent
Patriarchate.
The Time of Troubles (civil war) which began in AD 1598 upon the death of Czar Fedor (Theodore), the
childless son of Ivan IV, increased the Patriarch's political influence. It reached its height under Patriarch
Filaret, whose son, Michael, at the age of sixteen, became the first Czar of the Romanov Dynasty. When
Patriarch Adrian died in AD 1700, Czar Peter The Great refused to allow the election of a new Patriarch,
leaving Stefan Iavorskii as Locum Tenens for 21 years. In AD 1721 Czar Peter finally promulgated a new
constitution for The Church, which suspended the office of Patriarch and placed the governance of The
Church under an Holy Synod.