From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Russian Catholic Church is a Byzantine Rite church sui juris of the Catholic Church. Historically it represents a schism from the Russian Orthodox Church. It is now in full communion with and subject to the authority of the Pope of Rome as defined by Eastern canon law. As of 2006, Russian Catholics have no hierarchy; their few parishes are served by priests ordained in other Byzantine Catholic Churches, former Orthodox priests, and Roman Catholic priests with biritual faculties, many of them Jesuits. Byzantine Rite church sui juris of the Catholic Church. Historically it represents a schism from the Russian Orthodox Church. It is now in full communion with and subject to the authority of the Pope of Rome as defined by Eastern canon law. As of 2006, Russian Catholics have no hierarchy; their few parishes are served by priests ordained in other Byzantine Catholic Churches, former Orthodox priests, and Roman Catholic priests with biritual faculties, many of them Jesuits.

In Russia, it is purported that after the gradual development of the East-West Schism, a tiny group of Russian families maintained themselves as “Old Catholics,” (rus: старокатолики (starokatoliki)), a name which should not be confused with the Döllingerite Old Catholic Churches of Europe and the U.S., who formally split with the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of the reforms of the First Vatican Council. The status of this group of Russian "Old Catholics", families and groups of individuals to whom the union with Rome remains dear and essential, or its relation to the current Russian (Rite) Catholic Church is unclear.

The modern Russian Catholic church owes much to the inspiration of visionary poet and philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853-1900), who urged, following Dante, that, just as the world needed the Tsar as a universal monarch, the Church needed the Pope of Rome as a universal ecclesial hierarch. Following Solovyov's teachings a Russian Orthodox priest, Nicholas Tolstoy, entered into full communion with the See of Rome under the Melkite Greek-Catholic, Byzantine Rite Patriarchate of Antioch. Solovyov received sacramental last holy communion from Father Tolstoy believing that in doing so he remained also a faithful member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox authorities refer to Tolstoy as an apostate and “ex-priest,” but tend to imply that Solovyov still died an Orthodox Christian. Nevertheless, Solovyov has never retracted his sentiments in favor of union with the Catholic Church and the See of Rome, and to this day, many Russian Catholics refer to themselves as members of the 'Russian Orthodox Church in communion with Rome'.

The Russian Catholic Church formally united with Rome in 1905. Old Believers were very prominent in the early years of the movement. Despite enduring persecutions of Russian Catholics, even though Nicholas II and especially the February Revolution relieved a bit of the persecution, the first Apostolic Exarchate for Russian Catholics was formed in 1917 with Most Reverend Leonid Feodorov, formerly a Russian Orthodox seminarian, as Exarch, but the Bolshevik Revolution soon followed, dispersing Russian Rite Catholics into the Siberian GULAG and the centers of the Russian diaspora throughout the world. Exarch Leonid Feodorov was deported to the communist concentration camp at Solovki. Released in 1932, he died three years later. He was beatified in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. In 1928, a second Apostolic Exarchate was set up for the Russian Catholics in China, based in Harbin.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Russian Catholics have cautiously begun to appear in the open. In a 2005 ariticle, Russian Catholic priest Sergei Golovanov stated that three Russian Catholic priests serve on Russian soil celebrating the Russian Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Two of them use the recension of the Russian Liturgy as reformed by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in the 1600s, and the other priest uses the medieval rite of the Old Believers, that is to say, as the Russian liturgical recension existed before Patriarch Nikon's (minor) reforms of the Russian Liturgy. All Russian Catholics strictly maintain the use of Church Slavonic. As of 2006, the two Exarchates are still at least officially extant but have not yet been reconstituted, neither have new Russian Rite bishops been appointed to head them.

There are also Russian Catholic parishes and faith communities in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, San Francisco, New York, Denver, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Meudon, Paris, Chevetogne, Lyon, Berlin, Munich, Rome, Milan, and Singapore.