WSJ.com - In Unorthodox Rift, Exiled Church Splits On Rejoining Russia

WSJ.com - In Unorthodox Rift, Exiled Church Splits On Rejoining Russia explains how the Russian Orthodox church has split into two churches that may remerge:

It all goes back to 1054, when Orthodoxy and Catholicism split, creating separate power centers in Constantinople and Rome. The sacking of Constantinople, from which Greek Orthodoxy eventually sprang, in 1453 led Moscow to assert itself as the 'Third Rome.' Over time, the Russian church and state grew closer, especially after the Romanovs, the royal family, consolidated their power in the 1600s.

When the Bolsheviks seized control of Russia in 1917, they stripped the Moscow Patriarchate of its property, dynamited its churches and slaughtered the royal family. The leader of the Moscow Patriarchate died in jail. His successor, Metropolitan Sergius, won his freedom in 1927 by pledging allegiance to the Soviets.

Surviving Russian aristocrats and clergy formed the Church Abroad in what was then Yugoslavia to preserve the religion of the czars until Russians were free to worship at home again. A southern regiment in the czar's army entrusted to the exiled church the banners, which feature a two-headed imperial eagle, the likeness of Saint George the dragon-slayer and an "N" for Czar Nicholas I. The Church Abroad, which claims about 100,000 members world-wide and has parishes in many parts of the U.S., moved its headquarters to New York in 1950. (A separate offshoot of Russian Orthodoxy, known as the Orthodox Church in America, cut its ties with Moscow in the 1970s. Its 750,000 members conduct services in English and stress their American identity. Reunification isn't an issue for them, having long ago made peace with the Moscow Patriarchate.)

For generations, adherents of the Church Abroad tried to recreate the glorious days of the Romanovs. They used their royal titles, raised their children to read Pushkin in the original Russian and threw formal balls at ritzy New York hotels. Their church holds services mostly in Old Church Slavonic, an older form of Russian. Feast-day ceremonies last upward of five hours. Only a few members of the church ever talked about reuniting with Moscow.

Last year, Mr. Putin intervened, hoping to bring back together the two branches of Russian Orthodoxy in an effort to restore a national identity to a country ripped apart by the Soviet Union's collapse.