[1][2][3][4][5] The beginning of this body was laid in 1990, when the cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov), was admitted to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and began to create new parishes in his subordination, receiving the rank of bishop of Suzdal in 1991.

[5] The ROAC reject the "Sergianist heresy" and holds that the sacraments of the Moscow Patriarchate (considered distinct from the Russian Orthodox Church that existed before the Bolshevik revolution) are anathema or invalid and ineffectual for salvation.

[10] At the beginning of 1990, the clergy and the parish of the Tsar-Сonstantine Church in Suzdal, headed by Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov), who was banned from serving, decided to transfer to the ROCOR.

Archimandrite Valentin and the community received significant assistance in the days when they had already left the ROC, but had not yet been officially accepted into the ROCOR, from the nonconformist TV program "The Fifth Wheel", as well as the Moscow newspaper "Moskovskiye Novosti" and the magazine "Ogonyok".

On October 4, 1990, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR appointed Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov) as Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Free Church and Managing affairs at the Suzdal Diocesan Administration with the right to independently accept clergy and communities from the Moscow Patriarchate.

As a rule, legal parishes (usually with their own churches) from the Moscow Patriarchate passed to Bishop Valentin, while Archbishop Lazar headed communities that remained in illegal or semi-legal position.

[12] The desire to overcome the division between the Russian bishops led to the appearance in the ROCOR Synod of the idea of creating a structure in Russia, which by its very position would be "above the fray."

The Russian clergy and laity gathered at the Meeting expressed their categorical disagreement with the new division of dioceses, since it entailed the re-registration of many parishes, which was fraught with the loss of all registration, as well as churches.

On March 12, 1995, an emergency meeting of the "Russian Eminences" was held in Suzdal, consisting of five bishops: Lazar (Zhurbenko), Valentin (Rusantsov), Theodore (Gineyevsky), Seraphim (Zinchenko), Agathangel (Pashkovsky), who "in view of the increased illegal claims of the Synod of Bishops and the First Hierarch of ROCOR for the appropriation of by them of the All-Russian Church Authority and violations by them of the Holy Canons of the Church, disregard of the Resolutions of the All-Russian Council of 1917-18, the Decree of St. Patriarch Tikhon and the precepts of St.

The New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia", determined "The Act signed at the Bishops' Council in France in November 1994 <...> completely denounced and lost all meaning", resumed the work of the Provisional Supreme Church Administration.

At the same time, Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) and Bishop Agathangel (Pashkovsky), who repented before and returned to ROCOR, are separated from the Provisional Supreme Church Аdministration.

In the same year, the Provisional Supreme Church Administration ordered to stop commemorating the first hierarch of the ROCOR Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) in the temples subordinate to him.

After reviewing Bishop Arsenius case, the Synod offered him tougher conditions: three years of repentance in a remote Australian monastery and, possibly, a subsequent appointment to one of the foreign chairs.

After returning to Russia, he gathered the diocesan congress of his diocese, at which it was decided to switch to self-government, referring at the same time, as earlier the ROFC, to the decree of Patriarch Tikhon and the Supreme Church Administration under him for No 362.

In September 1999, the parish of the Venerable Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna in St. Petersburg, whose de facto leader was the famous theologian and patrologist Basil Lourié, moved to the ROAC from the ROCOR.

[25] On April 30 — May 1, 2001, celebrations were held at the Tsar-Сonstantine Cathedral on the occasion of the glorification of the Metropolitan of New York and Eastern America, the third first hierarch of ROCOR Philaret (Voznesensky) by the ROAC as saint.

During the investigation, representatives of the prosecutor's office stated that the building of the Sacristy Monastery, which housed the Suzdal diocesan administration, was transferred illegally and should be returned to municipal ownership.

On February 4, 2004, the community in Serpukhov of the ROAC, headed by Priest Roman Pavlov, and part of the parishioners of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Golovinsky Cemetery in Moscow, headed by Archpriest Mikhail Makeyev, as well as the Orthodox Brotherhood of the Holy Apostle James, left the ROAC and came under the omophorion of Metropolitan Epiphanius (Panayotou) from the Old-Calindarist True Orthodox Church of Cyprus.

Finding himself alone, Archbishop Gregory of Denver and Colorado proclaimed the formation of a new schismatic group, called the "Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church in America."

Also supporters of the imiaslavie views were Hegumen Theofan (Areskin), Alexander Soldatov, Tatiana Senina (nun Marfa), Olga Mitrenina.

On July 20, 2005, hegumen Gregory (Lourié) was banned from serving, and on September 5 of the same year he was defrocked, but he did not recognize the legality of this, and continued to perform divine services.

In the same year, a conflict between Metropolitan Valentin (Rusantsov) and the vicar of the Suzdal diocese, Bishop Sebastian (Zhatkov) was became, which led to the fact that the latter in 2006 spontaneously endowed himself with the title of archbishop and the right to wear a diamond cross on his klobuk.

In May 2007, an alternative center was formed in Bezhetsk, named the "Provisional Church Council" under Bishop Sebastian (Zhatkov) of Chelyabinsk, which united several parishes that had left the subordination of the Synod of the ROAC.

In the autumn of 2006, the process began in the Arbitration Court of the Vladimir Oblast: the territorial administration of the Federal Agency for State Property Management demanded that 13 Suzdal churches be withdrawn from use from the ROAC.

On February 5, 2009, the Arbitration Court of the Vladimir Oblast, at the request of the Federal Agency for State Property Management, decided to withdraw 13 churches from the ROAC due to the absence of a contract for their use.

The ROAC disagreed with the reasoning of the department, pointing out that its head, Metropolitan Valentin, received the title of honorary citizen of Suzdal precisely for his great contribution to the restoration of religious buildings.

In addition, the Church referred to contracts with the State Center for the Accounting, use and restoration of historical and cultural monuments of the Vladimir Oblast, which give them the right to dispose of all 13 religious buildings.

A representative of the Federal Agency for State Property Management said that the buildings began to collapse despite the fact that large sums were transferred for restoration from abroad.

At the end of November 2009, the Federal Agency for State Property Management sent a letter to the Department of Internal Affairs of Suzdal with a request to initiate criminal proceedings the case against the ROAC and its primate.

On February 10, 2011, the episcopal consecration of Archimandrite Mark (Rassokha) took place, who, contrary to definition, became only a vicar of the North Caucasus diocese with the title of "Bishop of Armavir".