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'''Brief History The beginning of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous [[Church (or Free Russian Orthodox Church)''' The beginning of the Russia|Russian Orthodox Church ]] goes back to ancient times. The "Baptism of Rus'" by Saint [[Vladimir of Kiev|Prince Vladimir ]] was only one stage in the long process of Russia turning to Christ. In the thousand years of its existence, the Greek-Russian Church (its official name since the 18th century) acquired a powerful structure and oversaw parishes in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.===Splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church=== After the October coup d'etat of 1917 and the Civil War in Russia, the single Greek-Russian Church was found to be split administratively - first by the front line, and then by the USSR's borders - into two parts: the Church existing within the homeland (later, as the persecutions grew stronger, it acquired illegal status and became the "Catacomb Church"), and the [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia]], or ROCOR. Forced to split administratively by political circumstances, both parts of the Russian Church were still one, spiritually and mystically. They both commemorated the canonical Church power in the person of Metropolitan [[Peter of Krutitsk]], and they communicated in prayer and the Divine Mysteries. Moreover, the First Hierarchs of the ROCOR - Metropolitans [[Anthony]], [[Anastassy]], and [[Philaret ]] - had great authority with the True Orthodox clergy and laymen in Russia. Catacomb priests who had lost communication with their Bishops in Russia began to commemorate the First Hierarchs of the ROCOR during the Divine Services and even entered into its jurisdiction when they had the opportunity; for example, in 1975 a group of twelve Catacomb priests, providing spiritual support for a few dozen parishes in Russia, were received under the omophorion of St. Metropolitan Philaret, First-Hierarch of the ROCOR. Sobor and Synodal Epistles were distributed back and forth between the Russian Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church continuously. Although correspondence was not easy, it was maintained nonetheless.

===Splitting of the Catacomb Church===By the end of the 1920s, the GPU or "Main Political Office," forerunner of the KGB, managed to sever from the persecuted Catacomb Church of Russia two church groups - the Renovationists and the Sergianists, which both compromised with the atheists and broke away from the ''Russian Church''. These groups were recognized as schismatic by both parts of the Russian Church (that is, by the holy New Martyrs and by the ROCOR episcopacy). In 1943, when the war was under way, for political purposes, Stalin united what remained of the schismatic Renovationists and Sergianist groups into the new official church of the USSR, upon which he bestowed the title of the "Russian Orthodox Church" ("Russkaja Pravoslavnaja Tserkov," or ROC, the present day Moscow Patriarchate). Stalin also established a special Council for ROC affairs for the supervision of this "Soviet Church," the members of which were NKVD officers (National Commissariat for Domestic Affairs; another KGB forerunner). Nominally, at the head of the Soviet "ROC" was the leader of the Sergianist schism (which was named after him) - Metropolitan [[Sergius I (Stragorodsky) of Moscow|Sergei (Stargorodsky)]], who five days after his "historic encounter" with Stalin became, by the grace of Stalin, "the [[Patriarch ]] of Moscow and all Russia". However, a valid Patriarch could be elected only by the Local [[Council ]] with the presence of all the bishops[[bishop]]s, lower [[clergy ]] and laymen. In 1943, up to 150 hierarchs were still languishing in prisons, concentration camps, or exile.

In the meantime, the ''true Russian Church '' - the Catacomb Church - remained persecuted. Almost all of its bishops were being held in prisons and camps, along with a considerable portion of the clergy that did not want to enter the Moscow Patriarchate. The canonical Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See was shot in 1937, but even twelve years earlier he had been deprived by Soviet power of the right to govern the Church. As early as the 1930s, there were distinct groups forming among the Catacomb Christians, named as a rule after their bishop-confessors: for example, the "Josephites," so called after the name of the Metropolitan of Petrograd Joseph (Petrovych); the "Buevtsi," after Bishop Alexiy (Buy), and so forth.

The first major parish that entered under the jurisdiction of the ROCOR Synod was the parish of the Tsar Konstantin Church in Suzdal, which was directly subordinated to Metropolitan Vitaly. Almost a year after its joining, on February 10th, 1991, in Brussels, the superior of the parish, Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov), was consecrated as Bishop of Suzdal. At that time catacomb communities began to join the Free Russian Orthodox Church, or FROC (the name of the canonical Church in Russia under the oversight of ROCOR). At this time, priests and parishes were leaving the MP and were also accepted into the FROC. In Suzdal, together with the flock that had left the MP with then-Father Valentin, neighboring catacombniks became parishioners of Tsar Konstantin Church and other churches of FROC. New communities and parishes were also created. Catacombniks' distrust of Archbishop Lazar, who was providing spiritual support for the unregistered and therefore "illegal" part of FROC, prompted them to appeal to Bishop Valentin of Suzdal. As a rule, the communities sent their representatives to Suzdal in order to find out exactly what FROC was, about its hierarchy and clergy, and whether they really practiced true Orthodoxy. Representatives of the "Josephite" and "Buevtsi" communities of Voronezh and Saint Petersburg, which joined FROC, came to Suzdal. The present Abbess of The Deposition of the Sash of the Virgin Mary Convent in Suzdal, Schema-Abbess Evfimia, came to Suzdal from the community of the Voronezh catacombniks.

Consequently, conflicts increased between the leaders of the Synod of ROCOR and the bishops in Russia, who adhered to the truly Orthodox catacomb views. Bishops of the Free Russian Orthodox Church, who were under the jurisdiction of ROCOR, i.e. Archbishop Lazar and Bishop Valentin, were unlawfully removed from their Sees. After all their requests for a fair judgment and implementation of the violated holy canons had been denied, they had no recourse other than to separate from ROCOR administratively and form an autonomous, self-governing Church, on the basis of the [[Ukase ]] of St. Patriarch [[Tikhon of Moscow|Tikhon]] and his Supreme Church Office, [[Ukaz No. 362|#362 ]] of November 20, 1920. They also consecrated three bishops for the Russian Church: Theodore, Seraphim, and Agathangel.

In the meantime, as a result of the continuous encounters between the Archbishop of Berlin, [[Mark (Arndt) of Berlin|Mark (ROCOR)]], and the leaders of the MP (in particular, with the Patriarch himself), the Russian Synod of Bishops and the MP formed a plot to depose Archbishop Valentin, although it had been many years since he had ceased to belong to either group. Archbishop Valentin was their target because he was interfering in the unification of the ROCOR and the MP. This plan was accomplished by the ROCOR in September 1996 and by the MP in February 1997. The Russian bishops recognized these actions as canonically meaningless, for they had been directed against the clergy of the FROC, who were not members of ROCOR, and the MP could not and cannot be recognized as a Church. As early as 1994 Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) in his report to Metropolitan Vitaly called such "suspensions" and "dismissals" an "unexampled illegality".