Russian Catholic Church The Russian Catholic Church is a
Byzantine Rite church sui juris of the Roman 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 bi-ritual faculties, many of them Jesuits. In
Russia, it is purported that after the gradual development of
the Great 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