Eastern Orthodox Churches

Eastern Orthodox churches under Communist rule

After the October Revolution of 1917, part of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church fled abroad to escape Bolshevik persecutions, founding an independent church in exile, which reunified with its Russian counterpart in 2007. Others formed the present-day Orthodox Church in America, and the American Orthodox Catholic Church (the latter whose bishops were considered episcopi vagantes, yet also accepted back into mainstream Orthodoxy). Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture, being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals. In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.