Archdiocese of the Goths and the Northlands

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The Archdiocese of the Goths and the Northlands is a church which is part of the Russian Catacomb Church of True Orthodox Christians which self-identifies as Eastern Orthodox, however it is not recognized by, or in communion with any other Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.

The church claims to be affiliated with the Russian True Orthodox Church (also known as "catacombists", a splinter group not to be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church).^[1]

Creation

The church was established in 1994 in Moscow by Aleksey Sievers [ru], who was ordained archbishop under the name Amvrosij (Ambrosius). It has been a registered ecclesiastical and religious body in Sweden since 2008.^[1]

It claims apostolic succession through the Russian True Orthodox Church, and territorial jurisdiction deriving from the Metropolitanate of Gothia and Kaphas, the church of the Crimean Goths in the Principality of Theodoro. The Metropolitanate of Gothia was under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch until 1783, when, subsequent to the Russian conquest of the Crimea, it was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church.^[2]

It also claims to be the earliest Church authority in Scandinavia, with presence preceding the Ansgar mission, allegedly with the (now ruined) St Laurentius Church in the island of Gotland.^[3]^[4]

Historiography of the church

According to Aleksey "Ambrosius" Sievers, Christianity came to the Goths as early as the mid-1st century by a missionary journey of Andrew the Apostle, long before their conversion to Arianism under the episcopate of Ulfilas. "The 'eastern' ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Västergötland, Östergötland and in Gotland was so obvious to anyone at the time that even Rome sent its missionary bishop, Saint Ansgar, to Svealand where Christianity in comparison was relativelly weak at that time. It's fairly realistic to speak of Old Gothic (Byzantine) and Celtic (a little later Anglo-Saxon) influence in Sweden, instead of Roman".^[5]

These claims run counter to the general 20th-century consensus of historians, but there is some more recent research which seems to corroborate that Christianity may have been present in Russia earlier than previously thought, from as early as the 8th or 9th century, via Byzantine transmission.^[6] This supposed cultural contact reflects the Viking Age (9th-century) Rus expansion eastward, establishing the so-called Rus' Khaganate on the margins of the Byzantine sphere of influence.^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b I december förra året erkändes Gotiska Ärkestiftet som trossamfund i Sverige av Kammarkollegiet Marc Abramsson, Nationell Idag möter Katakombkyrkans gotiske ärkebiskop Archived April 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Nationell Idag (2009)
^ Kiminas 2009, pp. 19.
^ Gotlands allehanda, "Landsortskyrkor i fokus", 31/5-2010
^ Bysantiska traditioner i Gotlands konst under 1100-talet, Svetlana Vasilyeva, 2009, Fornvännen 104 (PDF)
^ Marc Abramsson, Nationell Idag möter Katakombkyrkans gotiske ärkebiskop Archived April 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Nationell Idag (2009)
^ Rhodin, Leon; Gren, Leif; Lindblom, Verner (2000). Liljestenarna och Sveriges kristnande från Bysans (PDF). Vol. 95. Fornvännen.se.
^ e.g. Alfred Nicolas Rambaud, 'History of Russia', 1878.

Literature

Kiminas, Demetrius (2009). The Ecumenical Patriarchate: A History of Its Metropolitanates with Annotated Hierarch Catalogs. Wildside Press LLC. ISBN 9781434458766.