Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)

The Church of Moscow and all Rus, by far the largest of the Orthodox Churches. It chose its own metropolitan in 1448, after Constantinople accepted union with Rome at Florence, and became a patriarchate in 1589; Peter the Great put it under a Synod in 1721, and the council of 1917 restored the patriarchate in the same weeks the Bolsheviks took power. Under Soviet rule tens of thousands of its clergy, monks and nuns were shot or died in the camps, and it has glorified more than a thousand of them by name as New Martyrs and Confessors. The Church Outside Russia, formed by emigré bishops, was reconciled with it in 2007. Patriarch Kirill has led it since 2009. In 2018 it broke communion with Constantinople over Ukraine. Its heart is still the Lavra of St Sergius at Sergiev Posad, and its saints, from Seraphim of Sarov to Matrona of Moscow, are loved across the whole Orthodox world.