Privacy Policy
The short version: the Synodal app collects no data about you, creates no accounts, and shows no advertising. The details are below, including the one case in which the app reaches the network.
Effective date: July 31, 2026.
Who publishes the app
The Synodal app (Синодал in Russian) is published by Andrey Troegubov, one person, not a company. For any question about this policy, write to andrey@troegubov.co.
The app's source code is open: github.com/troegubovco/RussianOrthodoxReader. Everything described below can be verified in it.
What data is collected
None. The app collects and transmits no personal data, creates no accounts, and never asks for a name, phone number, email address, or sign-in through a third-party service.
The app contains no analytics, no audience measurement, no advertising networks, and no third-party SDKs. The data-collection declaration in its PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy file is empty.
The app does not request or use location, contacts, the device calendar, the microphone, browsing history, or the advertising identifier.
Network requests
The app makes exactly one kind of network request: a call to azbyka.ru/days for liturgical calendar data for a specific date.
That request is a fallback. The app first checks its local cache, then its own calendar database bundled inside the app, and reaches the network only if neither produced an answer.
The request carries only a date. It contains no device or user identifier, no names from the commemoration list, and nothing about what you have read, searched, or bookmarked.
Everything else works without a network: the Bible texts, the dictionary, the prayers, the commemoration list, the lives of the saints, the icon histories, and icon recognition.
Camera and icon recognition
Camera access is requested only for icon recognition. If you don't use that feature, the app doesn't need it.
The photo is processed on the device itself using Core ML. It is not uploaded to a server, not sent to the cloud, and not shared with third parties.
By default the photo is used only for recognition and is not saved. Settings offer an option to save the shots you take to your own Photos library; in that case the photo stays in your library and goes nowhere else.
iCloud sync
Sync is optional and is turned on in Settings. When it is on, the app uses iCloud and writes to your own private CloudKit database, tied to your Apple Account.
What syncs: your reading position, the entries in your commemoration list (names for the living and for the departed), prayer bookmarks, and the contents of My Rule.
This data is stored with Apple, in your private database. The app's author has no access to it: the app has no server of its own and receives no copy of that data. Changes from different devices are merged on the device.
If you turn sync off, the data stays on the device. Deleting the data from iCloud is done through the system, in the iCloud settings of your Apple Account.
The commemoration list and names
The names you add to the commemoration list are entered by you. They are stored on the device and, if sync is on, in your private iCloud database.
Putting those names into the right grammatical case happens on the device, using a bundled database of church names and the rules of Russian grammar. Names are never sent to any server for processing.
Data on the device
The Bible texts, the dictionary, the prayers, the calendar, the lives of the saints, the icon histories, and the recognition database are part of the app and are stored on the device.
Your own data inside the app (reading position, bookmarks, the commemoration list, My Rule, settings) is stored locally in the app's own storage. Deleting the app removes it from the device.
Children
The app collects no data from anyone, children included, and has no feature that asks for an age.
External links
In a few places the app offers to open a source page on azbyka.ru in your browser. That happens only when you tap it, and once you leave, the privacy policy of that site applies rather than this one.
Changes to this policy
If the app changes in a way that changes this policy, a new effective date and a description of what changed will appear here. Earlier versions of this page remain in the site repository's history.
Contact
Questions, corrections, and bug reports: andrey@troegubov.co.