俄罗斯正教会(Russian Orthodox Church)
俄国东正教教会，实际上是它的国教。988年基辅的弗拉基米尔王子（後来的弗拉基米尔一世）支持拜占庭东正教，命令他的国民进行洗礼。到14世纪，基辅和所有俄国（俄罗斯教会的总部）的大城市都属於莫斯科；不满意的西部俄国公国获得了暂时的单独的大城市，但主权後来重新集於莫斯科下。15世纪该教会放弃接受大城市伊西多尔和西部教会的联合（参阅Ferrara-Florence, Council of），指定了它们自己独立的大城市。莫斯科视自己为「第三个罗马」和真正东正教的最後壁垒；1589年俄罗斯教会的领导者获得族长的称号，将自己置於君士坦丁堡、亚历山大、安提俄克和耶路撒冷族长的地位。尼康的改革在教会里引起了分裂（参阅Old Believer），彼得大帝（彼得一世）在1721年废除了族长统治，使教会管理成为国家的一个部门。族长统治重建於1917年，即布尔什维克革命的两个月前，但在苏维埃下，教会被剥夺了合法权利，实际上被镇压。随着苏联的分解（1991），它经历了巨大的复兴。美国的俄罗斯正教会在1970年从莫斯科独立出来。
English version：
Russian Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox church of Russia, its de facto national church. In 988 Prince Vladimir of Kiev (later St. Vladimir) embraced Byzantine Orthodoxy and ordered the baptism of his population. By the 14th century, the metropolitan of Kiev and all Russia (head of the Russian church) was residing in Moscow; dissatisfied western Russian principalities obtained temporary separate metropolitans, but authority was later recentralized under Moscow. In the 15th century the church, rejecting Metropolitan Isidore's acceptance of union with the Western church (see Council of Ferrara-Florence), appointed their own independent metropolitan. Moscow saw itself as the “third Rome” and the last bulwark of true Orthodoxy; in 1589 the head of the Russian church obtained the title patriarch, putting him on a level with the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The reforms of Nikon caused a schism within the church (see Old Believers), and Peter I abolished the patriarchate in 1721, making church administration a department of the state. The patriarchate was reestablished in 1917, two months before the Bolshevik revolution, but under the soviets the church was deprived of its legal rights and practically suppressed. It saw a great resurgence following the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). The Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S. became independent from Moscow in 1970.