High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Russian Catholic Church (Russian: Российская греко-католическая церковь) is a Byzantine Rite church sui juris in full union with the 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 as defined by Eastern canon law. Russian Catholics have no hierarchy; their few parishes are served by priests ordained in other Byzantine Catholic Churches, former Orthodox priests, and Catholic priests with biritual faculties, many of them Jesuits.