Federal appeals court protects church’s freedom to pick its bishops Unanimous Second Circuit protects Orthodox Church’s right to freely make internal leadership decisions

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court today ruled in favor of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), confirming the Church’s ability to freely discuss and decide who should be its bishops. In Belya v. Metropolitan Hilarion, a defrocked priest sued his former church over a church disciplinary letter that questioned whether he met the qualifications necessary to be elected as a bishop. Becket, representing ROCOR, defended the Church’s freedom to select, discipline, and remove its leaders. 

“The selection of a bishop and the discipline of a priest are matters of prayer, discernment, and obedience to the Holy Spirit,” said His Eminence Nicholas, Metropolitan of Eastern America & New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. “We are grateful that our sacred responsibility of bringing God’s truth into the world can remain free to be guided by our best understanding of God’s leading.”

Father Alexander is a now-defrocked ROCOR priest. In the midst of an internal ecclesiastical uproar about whether he met the qualifications necessary to be elected bishop, Father Alexander’s diocesan leaders wrote a letter to ROCOR’s executive ecclesiastical body—the Synod—describing complaints claiming that Father Alexander’s conduct violated church laws and further explaining that he had not been elected pursuant to the Church’s ecclesiastical requirements. The letter called on the Church to suspend Father Alexander and to open an investigation. Father Alexander then left ROCOR and sued the Church for defamation. The Church has been in court defending its freedom to decide matters of church governance for six years. 

The Second Circuit held that “a church’s selection and supervision of its religious leaders are inherently religious acts” protected by the First Amendment, and that allowing Belya’s claims to proceed would “threaten[] a collateral attack” on those acts that would “render the First Amendment’s protection … meaningless.” Thus, where a claim like Belya’s arises from “a church’s protected investigation into a minister’s conduct and implicates questions of internal church governance, the church autonomy doctrine bars the claim.”

“Churches can’t freely minister to the faithful if every internal leadership dispute can be the subject of a federal lawsuit,” said Diana Thomson, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for ROCOR. “This ruling is a resounding victory for the principle that religious communities govern their own religious mission. It ensures that sacred decisions about who leads the faithful remain where they belong—inside the church, not a courthouse.”

ROCOR has endured over a half-decade of intrusive and costly litigation to reach today’s decision. But ROCOR is no stranger to church-state issues—its very existence is a testament to faith under fire. It was born in the 1920s after the Bolshevik government’s brutal interference and outright oppression of the Church forced countless Russian Orthodox bishops, priests, and faithful into exile. The Church found refuge in the free world, including the United States. Today it serves more than 500 parishes globally—nearly 300 in the U.S.—continuing its mission free from government control.

The Church is also represented by Donald J. Feerick, Jr. and Alak Shah at Feerick Nugent MacCartney, PLLC.