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→The Catacomb Church of Russia
Ukaz No. 362 was written to preserve the Orthodox Church in times of persecution so that the Churches could survive. It gives the bishops of the Russian Church, temporarily, the right to self-govern apart from each other until such time as they can organize. It is considered by some to be a masterpiece of self-preservation in a time where the rules of canonical order could not be followed to the letter due to the difficulty of travel and so forth.
The "Atheists Dictionary" (Moscow, 1966) contained the information the Soviet government was able to ascertain about the Catacomb Church, under the heading "True Orthodox Church": ''"TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH (TOC): An Orthodox-monarchist sect, originating in the years 1922-26, which was organized in 1927, when Metr. Sergius proclaimed the principles of a loyal relation to Soviet authority. Monarchist elements, united around the Metropolitan of Leningrad Joseph (Petrovykh), or JOSEPHITES, in 1928 established a directing center of the TOC, and united all groups and elements which had come out against the Soviet order. In the country the TOC had support among the kulaks and together with other anti-Soviet elements came out against collectivization and organized terroristic acts against Party and Soviet activities, uprisings, etc. It directed into the villages a multitude of monks and nuns who roamed about the countryside spreading anti-Soviet rumors. The TOC was a widely ramified monarchist-rebellious organization. In its compositions were 613 priests and monks, 416 kulaks, 70 former tsarist officials and officers. The more fanatical members, crazy women, passing themselves off for prophets, saints, healers, members of the imperial family, spread monarchist ideas, conducted propaganda against the leadership of the Orthodox Church, called on people not to submit to Soviet laws. Basic characteristics of the sect: (1) rejection of the Orthodox Church headed by the patriarch as having 'sold itself to Antichrist,' to the world; (2) recognition as canonical of only those clergy who have been ordained by followers of Tikhon; (3) acceptance of Orthodox rites; (4) propaganda of the approaching 'end of the world;' (5) cult of members of the imperial family of Romanov: their portraits are preserved as holy objects, and believers in secret make prostrations in front of them; (6) assumption of the names of tsars and their relatives by the leaders of the sect; (7) preservation and spread of counter-revolutionary monarchist literature; (8) establishment of catacomb churches and monasteries in houses."'' (''Ibid'' [http://www.theophanydesigns.com/rcs/metropolitanjoseph.html])
As late as 1979, the Catacomb Church was, with difficulty, able to continue communications with the Russian diaspora through Russians who emigrated from the USSR. An interview with one such emigre claimed that the members of the Catacomb Church numbered in the millions[http://www.theophanydesigns.com/rcs/catacombchurch1979.html]. The number of unaffiliated catacomb churches in Russia is to date fairly large, and even today no one knows where all of them are. The history of the different catacomb [[episcopate]]s since 1927 is still not completely documented. There are also questions as to the legitimacy of certain catacomb bishops. Sadly, these questions will have to be determined by a future all-Russian Council.
