Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow issues a decree that leads to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (Russian: , romanized: Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov' Zagranitsey, lit.'Russian Orthodox Church Abroad'), also called Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia or ROCOR, or Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA), is a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Currently, the position of First-Hierarch of the ROCOR is occupied by Metropolitan Nicholas (Olhovsky).The ROCOR was established in the early 1920s as a de facto independent ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Eastern Orthodoxy, initially due to lack of regular liaison between the central church authority in Moscow and some bishops due to their voluntary exile after the Russian Civil War. These bishops migrated with other Russians to Western European cities and nations, including Paris and other parts of France, and to the United States and other western countries. Later these bishops rejected the Moscow Patriarchates unconditional political loyalty to the Bolshevik regime in the USSR. This loyalty was formally promulgated by the Declaration of 20 July 1927 of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), deputy Patriarchal locum tenens. Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky), of Kiev and Galicia, was the founding First-Hierarch of the ROCOR.After 80 years of separation followed by the fall of the Soviet Union, on 17 May 2007, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia officially signed the Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, restoring the canonical link between the churches.
The ROCOR jurisdiction has around 400 parishes worldwide and an estimated membership of more than 400,000 people. Of these, 232 parishes and 10 monasteries are in the United States; they have 92,000 declared adherents and over 9,000 regular church attendees. The ROCOR has 13 hierarchs, with male and female monasteries in the United States, Canada, and the Americas; Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe.
Tikhon of Moscow (Russian: Тихон Московский, 31 January [O.S. 19 January] 1865 – 7 April [O.S. 25 March] 1925), born Vasily Ivanovich Bellavin (Russian: Василий Иванович Беллавин), was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). On 5 November 1917 (OS) he was selected the 11th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, after a period of about 200 years of the Synodal rule in the ROC. He was canonised as a confessor by the ROC in 1989.