The diocese was initially composed of parishes that were under the administration of the Russian White émigré bishop Eulogius Georgiyevsky.

Georgiyevsky had decided to place the exarchate under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate instead of allowing its continued subordination to the church in Moscow, which was by then under the full control of the Soviet state.

He was also unwilling to recognize the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, then based in Yugoslavia and headed by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.

[2][3][4] While Article 11 of the archdiocese's statute expressly states that its primate must be a bishop under the Ecumenical Patriarchate,[5] it continues to exist as a legal entity nevertheless.

Within the Russian Orthodox Church, jurisdiction over parishes in Western Europe was granted to the Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg.

[13] After the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Russian Orthodox Christians based outside Russia, and those who fled there from the communist regime, found themselves in a very difficult situation.

During the early 1920s, the vast majority of Russian Orthodox Christians in diaspora supported ROCOR, united in their opposition to the Soviet government.

Faced with those challenges, Metropolitan Eulogius appealed the Moscow Patriarchate, and received confirmation of his jurisdiction in Western Europe.

[20][21] That action caused a direct conflict between two Patriarchates (Constantinople and Moscow), leading to exchange of protests and accusations, without resolution.

[23][25] According to the Exarchate's own account, Patriarch Bartholomew "recognised the full autonomy of the Archdiocese in administrative, pastoral and material terms".

After his appointment, a number of parishes and communities, as well as some of the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Sourozh, followed Bishop Basil into the archdiocese and came to constitute the Episcopal Vicariate.

[28][29] The formal name has become the Deanery of Great Britain and Ireland within the Archdiocese of Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe.

On 27 November 2018, the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided unanimously to dissolve its exarchate of the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox churches in Western Europe.

[42][43][44][45] Since 4 December 2020, the parishes and communities that remained in the archdiocese have been a part of the Patriarchate of Moscow, as direct continuation of the Diocesan Union of Russian Orthodox Associations in Western Europe.