Eastern Orthodox Church

=== Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire ===
[[File:Uspensky Orthodox Cathedral - Helsinki, Finland - panoramio.jpg|thumb|[[Uspenski Cathedral]], a main cathedral of the [[Orthodox Church of Finland|Finnish Orthodox Church]] in [[Helsinki|Helsinki, Finland]], was built [[Grand Duchy of Finland|under Imperial Russia]].]]
By the time most Orthodox communities came under Muslim rule in the mid 15th century, Orthodoxy was very strong in Russia, which had maintained close cultural and political ties with the Byzantine Empire; roughly two decades after the fall of Constantinople, [[Ivan III of Russia]] married [[Sophia Palaiologina]], a niece of the last Byzantine Emperor [[Constantine XI Palaiologos|Constantine XI]], and styled himself Tsar ("Caesar") or ''imperator''. In 1547, his grandson [[Ivan the Terrible|Ivan IV]], a devout Orthodox Christian, cemented the title as "Tsar of All Rus", establishing Russia's first centralised state with divinely appointed rulers. In 1589, the Patriarchate of Constantinople granted autocephalous status to Moscow, the capital of what was now the largest Orthodox Christian polity; the city thereafter referred to itself as the [[Third Rome]] [[Third Rome#Russian claims|—]]<nowiki/>the cultural and religious heir of Constantinople.

Until 1666, when Patriarch Nikon was deposed by the [[Russian tsar|tsar]], the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] had been independent of the State.<ref>[http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/rusdest.htm "Russian Destinies"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928050122/http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/rusdest.htm |date=28 September 2008 }} by Fr. Andrew Phillips, "Orthodox England", 4/17 July 2005.</ref> In 1721, the first Russian Emperor, [[Peter I of Russia|Peter I]], abolished completely the patriarchate and effectively made the church a department of the government, ruled by a [[Most Holy Synod|most holy synod]] composed of senior bishops and lay bureaucrats appointed by the Emperor himself. Over time, Imperial Russia would style itself a protector and patron of all Orthodox Christians, especially those within the Ottoman Empire.<ref>''Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: from the late Middle Ages to World War One'', Randall. Lesaffer, 2004, p. 357.</ref>

For nearly 200 years, until the [[Bolshevik]]s' [[October Revolution]] of 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church remained, in effect, a governmental agency and an instrument of tsarist rule. It was used to varying degrees in imperial campaigns of [[Russification]], and was even allowed to levy [[tax]]es on [[peasant]]s. The church's close ties with the state came to a head under Nicholas I (1825–1855), who explicitly made Orthodoxy a [[Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality|core doctrine of imperial unity and legitimacy]]. The Orthodox faith became further tied to Russian identity and nationalism, while the church was further subordinated to the interests of the state. Consequently, Russian Orthodox Church, along with the imperial regime to which it belonged, came to be presented as an [[enemy of the people]] by the [[Bolsheviks]] and other Russian revolutionaries.<ref>[[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], ''Two Hundred Years Together''.</ref>