Patriarchate of Moscow

The Church of Rus’ began with the baptism of Kyiv in 988, and its metropolitans moved to Moscow in the 14th century. In 1589 it was raised to a patriarchate. Peter the Great abolished the office in 1721 and ran the Church through a synod, and it was restored in 1917, just before seventy years of Soviet persecution, during which tens of thousands of clergy were killed. Today it is the largest Orthodox Church. Its main cathedral, Christ the Saviour, was blown up by Stalin in 1931 and rebuilt in the 1990s.

• Date: 1589