Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

The Orthodox Church consists of jurisdictions. The global communion of the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest and most diverse. In particular, we are a monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad also called the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ROCOR was established during the 1920s as the Soviet regime murdered 200,000 Orthodox clergy and monastics desecrated or destroyed countless monasteries, parish churches, and cathedrals. Estimates of a general extermination of Christians in the Soviet Union run as high as 20 million. The Diaspora settled mostly in the English-speaking world: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and England, with monasteries and parishes in Western Europe. She recently celebrated her centennial year.

This earthly conflagration did not intimidate but formed an adamantine faith standing against the withering blasts of atheism. She learned the ways of liberal propaganda promising to raise up each person even as it stripped all of dignity and decency. And it resisted a Renovationist church, called the Living Church, established by order of Vladimir Lenin in 1927 for the purpose of confusing the faithful. (A similar strategy was deployed in 2019 with the creation of Orthodox Church in Ukraine seeking to undermine the thousand-year-old Ukrainian Orthodox Church.)

We discern this sleight of hand in our own time and culture with the the "two great commandments," "Live and let live" and "Don't judge me," fueling a rampant immorality now burning out of control. Westerners seem almost to have forgotten the essence of Christian life: a self-denying love of God and His holy ways; a love of neighbor which truly engages; a caring for all children, who need stability, rectitude, role models of goodness, and a mother and father joined in permanent vows of self-giving love.

The libertine catastrophe of the last half of the twentieth century has gutted life in the United States resulting in spiritual refugees dotting the landscape and the collapse of longtime institutions including our ancestral homes in the Anglican Communion and Roman Communion. If you find yourself without a faithful Church home, we promise that here you will find safe pastures, protected by a Church who will never kow-tow before the cruel gods of global woke culture. Here you will be welcomed as family. We are not ashamed of the Gospel (Rom 1:16). Our sacraments and ordinations are without shadow or doubt. Our bishops are not business executives, but holy men. Our warm-hearted priests and monastics are reliable spiritual fathers to our children and their parents.

Our Patriarch

His Holiness, Kirill, is Patriarch of the global Russian Orthodox Church, home to more than half of all Orthodox Christians. The worldwide Russian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous jurisdiction of the Orthodox Catholic Church (also known as Eastern Orthodoxy).

Our First Hierarch of Blessed Memory

We hold ever dear to memory the Vicar of the Good Shepherd, Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral)†. In 2019 he warmly received us into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, conferred stavropegial honors upon the Hermitage monastery, received our monastic vows, and ordained our priest, Father Columba. (Subsequently, Nuns Mary Anne and Mary Martha were tonsured according to the Lesser Schema on the Feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, 2022.) We venerate this Holy Elder at the Hermitage as St. Hilarion of Spirit River (the place of his birth).

Our First Hierarch

His Lord, the Very Most Reverend Nicholas (Olhovsky) is Primate and First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad celebrating its 100th year in the United States in 2023. With the Orthodox New Year of 2022, the Church elected its seventh First Hierarch. He is a pioneer of our unity accompanying First Hierarch Laurus in May, 2004 on his first official visit to Russia. He continues his longtime vocation as caretaker of the miraculous Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign."

Our Archbishop

His Eminence Archbishop Kyrill (Dmitriyev) of San Francisco and Western America is the ruling bishop of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. He was consecrated bishop of Seattle, Vicar of the Western American Diocese on June 7, 1992. In December 2003 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop. In 2006 His Eminence was appointed a member of the Commission for Negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate leading to the Act of Canonical Communion of May 17, 2007 reuniting the ROCOR to the Russian Orthodox Church. His Eminence was among those present in Jerusalem who uncovered the holy relics of the New Martyrs Archduchess Elizabeth and Nun Barbara. We are truly blessed to call him our "Spiritual Father."

Our Bishop, His Grace James of Sonora and of Monasteries

His Grace Bishop James (Corazza) as Bishop of Monasteries is our local shepherd. We are blessed to be guided by him. On August 30, 2019 the Holy Synod approved his election and named him Bishop of Sonora and Vicar Bishop of the Western American Diocese. He was consecrated on November 6, 2019.

Bishop of Seattle

His Grace, Bishop Peter (Karakozoff) was born into a family that sought refuge from the Soviet regime in West in the 1920s with others who settled the ROCOR. The Holy Synod approved his election as Bishop of Seattle, Vicar of the Western American Diocese, during their winter session of 2025. He was consecrated on March 28, 2026.