Eastern Orthodoxy in the Philippines

The Philippine Orthodox Church is the government-approved and registered legal name of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in the Philippines. Generally, it refers to the officially established Eastern Orthodox presence in the Philippines as a whole. Currently, there are only four Orthodox canonical missions in the Philippines:

Around the beginning of the 20th century, Greek sailors settled in Legazpi, Albay on the island of Luzon. Their descendants now number no more than 10 families, who have kept their Greek surnames and have become distinguished public figures and intellectuals, including serving in the Greek consulate in Manila.

One of the first Orthodox Christian faithful to arrive in the province of Albay was Alexandros Athos Adamopoulos (later anglicised to Alexander A. Adamson), who came to Legaspi City in 1928. Together with his brother and cousin he co-founded Adamson University in 1932, which is now owned by the Vincentian Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church.

During the American colonial regime, some Russian émigrées fleeing the Soviet Union arrived in the Philippines. In 1935, the Russian Orthodox Church established the first Orthodox parish in Manila, and the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia appointed Father Mikhail Yerokhin as vicar. The Episcopal Church then permitted Fr. Mikhail to use the north transept of their Cathedral of Saint Mary and Saint John for worship. In 1937, the Russian Orthodox Church built the first Orthodox church in the Philippines, dedicated and named after the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God. Both the Episcopal Cathedral and the Russian Orthodox church in Manila were destroyed in 1945 by Allied bombardment during the city's liberation at the end of the Second World War.

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