The Catacomb Church (Russian: Катакомбная церковь, romanized: Katakombnaya tserkov') as a collective name labels those representatives of the Russian Orthodox clergy, laity, communities, monasteries, brotherhoods, etc., who for various reasons, have moved to an illegal position since the 1920s. In a narrow sense, the term "catacomb church" means not just illegal communities, but communities that rejected subordination to the acting patriarchal locum tenens Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) after 1927, and adopted anti-Soviet positions. During the Cold War the ROCOR popularized the term in the latter sense, first within the Russian diaspora, and then in the USSR by sending illegal literature there.[1] The expression "True Orthodox church" (Russian: истинно-православная церковь, romanized: istinno-pravoslavnaya tserkov) is synonym for this latter, narrower sense of "catacomb church".[2]
The historian Mikhail Shkarovsky argues that "the catacombness of the Church does not necessarily mean its intransigence. This term covers all unofficial and therefore not state-controlled church activities".[3]
Organizationally, the Catacomb Church communities were usually not interconnected.[4]
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