The ROCOR–MP at Loggerheads with… the U.S. Government!
(NFTU) In recent weeks, U.S. Representatives Joe Wilson, Tom Kean Jr., and Brian Fitzpatrick have renewed calls for an investigation into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia under the Moscow Patriarchate (ROCOR-MP) under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Wilson’s argument, broadly stated, is that ROCOR is “controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate” and may serve as a vector for Russian state influence within the United States.
As our long-time readers know, the issue is more complex than either supporters or critics often acknowledge.
Background: The 2007 Reunification
In 2007, the larger portion of ROCOR entered into canonical communion with the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) after decades of estrangement dating back to its formation. This union restored sacramental communion but created an administrative relationship that has been interpreted very differently depending on one’s perspective.
Supporters claimed the union healed a major schism and “restored” ROCOR’s “canonical position.”
Opponents — including the continuing ROCOR groups who refused to unite — warned that joining an ecclesiastical structure deeply tied to the Russian state’s external affairs apparatus would eventually create exactly the kind of political vulnerability we’re seeing now.
Both interpretations have resurfaced amid the geopolitical fallout of the Ukraine war and the recent high-profile visit of ROCOR-MP, Serbian, and Antiochian bishops to the White House.
Enter Joe Wilson
The current congressional scrutiny is driven by several factors:
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The longstanding integration of the Moscow Patriarchate with Russian state organs, especially in the realm of external affairs.
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Ongoing Russian information and influence operations, which often use cultural or religious bodies to promote narratives favorable to Moscow.
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The reality that ROCOR-MP, although officially “autonomous,” remains canonically subordinate to the MP.
What Wilson and others have suggested is not that ROCOR functions as an espionage arm, but that FARA should be used to determine whether any political or financial coordination with Russian state-linked actors exists.
Conversations with clergy, laity, and observers reveal a far more textured situation than the binary “foreign agents vs. completely clean” framing. Most U.S. ROCOR-MP clergy are American-born or long-time residents focused on parish life and pastoral care. There is no evidence of coordinated political activity at the parish level.
But there are individuals within both ROCOR-MP and Patriarchal structures who have personal, ideological, or administrative ties to Moscow — a legacy of the Soviet and post-Soviet ecclesial landscape. Several ROCOR-MP clergy acknowledge privately that a small number of figures operate with loyalties aligned more closely to Russian state interests than to the American civic context—though they stress these individuals do not represent ROCOR as a whole.
This “non-zero presence” is the nuance absent from public discussion.
The Online Firestorm — and Why It’s Making Things Worse
The problem is amplified by a small but noisy circle of ROCOR-MP and MP clergy, podcasters, and YouTubers who seem determined to turn every congressional letter into their own Streisand Moment. We all know the types: Patriarch Kirill delivering political monologues disguised as sermons; YouTube commentators translating Russian Telegram posts without context; would-be theologians repeating the Kremlin’s “the West hates Orthodoxy” mantra like a liturgical refrain.
These voices leap instantly to talk of persecution, Bolshevism, and the supposed criminalization of the Faith — a script indistinguishable from RT and Tsargrad TV.
Washington staffers notice this. Intelligence analysts notice this.
When U.S.-based clergy echo the Kremlin’s victimhood rhetoric word-for-word, it doesn’t read as piety; it reads as alignment. And that alignment — rhetorical, ideological, or accidental — is exactly what convinces investigators that ROCOR deserves a closer look.
The irony is painful: a tiny cohort of online ideologues is making the entire Church look politically compromised while the average ROCOR-MP parish is simply trying to baptize children, pay the rent, and live a normal American Orthodox life.
But given how Metropolitan Vitaly’s ouster was handled at the beginning of this century — the pressure, the secrecy, the manipulation — we also have to ask: is this a case of chickens coming home to roost?
What’s at Stake
A sweeping FARA designation applied to ROCOR as a whole could have far-reaching consequences:
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Restrictions on clergy activity
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Surveillance and compliance burdens
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Collateral impact on thousands of ordinary American parishioners
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A precedent-setting treatment of a religious community
At the same time, ignoring legitimate concerns risks fueling future political backlash.
The situation demands careful analysis rather than sensational rhetoric.
The ROCOR–MP relationship is structurally tied to Moscow but pastorally rooted in American communities.
U.S. policymakers, clergy, and faithful would benefit from a more nuanced understanding of how ecclesiastical, political, and geopolitical forces overlap — but do not neatly align — within the jurisdiction.
Further analysis will follow on our Substack in the coming days.
