The Metropolis of Kiev is a metropolis of the Eastern Orthodox Church that was transferred to the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1685. From 988 AD until 1596 AD, the mother church of the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' had been the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Moscow Patriarchate was a Caesaropapist entity that was under the control of the Russian state. While nominally ruled by a metropolitan bishop, since its inception, the secular authorities of the Tsardom of Russia altered the territorial remit of the Kyiv metropolis, stripped it of its suffragan sees and transformed the office from an ecclesiastical province to an archbishopric to an honorific or empty title.

The Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', also known as the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, is the title of the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is often preceded by the honorific "His Holiness". As the ordinary of the Diocese of Moscow, the office holder's direct canonical remit extends only to Moscow; however, as Patriarch, the office holder has a number of church-wide administrative powers as laid down by the charter of the Russian Orthodox Church.