Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church

Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
Type	Eastern Orthodox
Classification	Independent Eastern Orthodox
Orientation	True Orthodoxy
Primate	Metropolitan Theodore (Gineyevsky) [ru]
Language	Church Slavonic
Liturgy	Byzantine Rite
Headquarters	Suzdal, Russia
Founder	Valentin Rusantsov
Independence	1995
Recognition	Unrecognized (see True Orthodoxy)
Separated from	Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia

The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC, Russian: Российская православная автономная церковь, РПАЦ; until 1998 it was called the Russian Orthodox Free Church, ROFC, Russian: Российская православная свободная церковь, РПСЦ) is a Russian Orthodox church body headquartered in Suzdal, Russia. ROAC identifies as part of True Orthodoxy. In the Moscow Patriarchate, the ROCOR, and the mass media, it has the designation "Suzdal Schism" (Russian: Суздальский раскол).^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The beginning of this body was laid in 1990, when the cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov), was admitted to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and began to create new parishes in his subordination, receiving the rank of bishop of Suzdal in 1991. In 1995, Bishops Valentin (Rusantsov), Theodore (Gineyevsky), Seraphim (Zinchenko) and their clergy and parishes separated from the ROCOR. The Suzdal diocese of Valentin (Rusantsov) became the center of the new church. The 2000s were characterized by the weakening of the ROAC and a reduction in the number of parishes and laity due to various conflicts and schisms. In 2009, the process of seizure of historical churches, previously transferred to the use of the ROAC, began. This process was completed in 2019, when the ROAC had no such churches left. In March 2015 Federal Bailiffs Service officials took two relics from a ROAC cathedral and gave them to the Russian Orthodox Church.^[6][7][8]

The ROAC as of 2017 consisted of: 35 officially registered parishes; 30 parishes operating as religious groups; 20-30 illegal ("catacomb") parishes; 10 bishops, 40 priests, 20 nuns and approximately 5,000 laypeople.^[5]

The ROAC reject the "Sergianist heresy" and holds that the sacraments of the Moscow Patriarchate (considered distinct from the Russian Orthodox Church that existed before the Bolshevik revolution) are anathema or invalid and ineffectual for salvation.^[9] The ROAC upholds in principle and emphasizes the ROCOR 1983 anathema against ecumenism.^[10]