New York, USA - Leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which split from its Moscow-based parent after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, have voted to fully reconcile with the Russian church next May, a spokesman said.
Bishops of the U.S.-based church chose the date during a meeting last week. Moscow church leaders must now vote on whether they agree on the timing, and if they approve, "that's pretty much it," said Nicholas Ohotin, New York-based spokesman for the emigre church.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has nearly 400 parishes worldwide, including in Australia, Europe and Russia itself.
The emigre church split from the Moscow patriarchate three years after the Bolshevik Revolution and cut all ties in 1927, after Patriarch Sergiy declared the Russian Church's loyalty to the Soviet Union's communist government.
Reconciliation talks between the divided churches intensified about three years ago.
The Russian Orthodox Church recently disavowed Sergiy's declaration of loyalty to the communist government, saying it had been aimed at saving the church.
Under the plan that the bishops approved in New York last week, leaders from the two churches would gather in May in Moscow and sign an "act of canonical communion" that would end their decades-long break. The U.S.-based church would continue to oversee its own affairs, but elections of bishops would have to be confirmed by Russian leaders.