[Content] The course traces the development of the Russian Orthodox Church and her descendant autonomous and autocepha‧lous bodies from the downfall of the Russian Empire (1917) to the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991). The lectures discuss: 1. the adaptation of the Russian Orthodox Church to the political changes in the former Russian imperial territories; 2. the emergence of grassroots autocephalies and orchestrated descendant churches; 3. the history of the Russian church emigration, its jurisdictional struggles, ecclesiastical divisions, and ecclesiological concepts; 4. the intervention of the Soviet regime in the domestic and inter‧national activities of the Moscow Patriarchate.

[Scope] The course aims to acquaint students with the complexity of the 20th-century history of the Russian Orthodox Church. Focused on the ecclesiological, jurisdictional, and canonical problems faced by this Church and her descendant bodies, the lectures will pay par‧ticular attention to their discussion in the works of contemporaries.