The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church,[3][4][5][6] is the second-largest

Christian church, with approximately 260 million baptised members.[1][7][8][9][10] It operates as a

communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops in local synods.[9] Roughly half of
Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Russia. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority
analogous to the Bishop of Rome, but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by all as
primus inter pares ("first among equals") of the bishops. As one of the oldest surviving religious
institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and
culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[11]