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→1946-1970: Open Hostility
:After 1917, they first joined together with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. However, eventually after much hesitation, a small number of Russian bishops in North America cut themselves off from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and formed an independent but uncanonical group, called the Metropolia. In 1970 this group was given autocephaly (independence) by the still enslaved Church in Russia.[http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/ruedaru.htm]
The question of the nature of the relationship between the ROCOR and the Metropolia during this the period of 1917-1946 has significant bearing on the jurisdictional legitimacy of both the OCA and the ROCOR as they now exist. If they never had much more than a "loose association," then the OCA's argument for Orthodox primacy in America is strengthened, as it would never have been under any jurisdictional authority other than Moscow's or its own. The period from the 1920s until 1970 of tension between it and Moscow are simply a difficult period between a mission diocese and its mother church.
If, however, the Metropolia was indeed part of the ROCOR, then its claims to being the direct heir of Russia's primacy in America are thrown into question, and the legitimacy of Moscow's grant of [[autocephaly]] to the OCA in 1970 has significant problems, in that it would be favoring a rogue jurisdiction which had switched allegiances multiple times and could be said to have been in schism from its legitimate canonical authority. Far from being a "notable exception" to the canonical authority-switching of various jurisdictions, the Metropolia had gone into schism from Moscow, joined the ROCOR, gone into schism from the ROCOR, rejoined it, then gone into schism from it again, eventually to receive canonical approval in 1970 from the church in Communist Russia.
