The Russian Orthodox Church healed a 80-year schism on Thursday, restoring ties between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR ) and the Russian Orthodox Church in a spectacular liturgy held at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow.

Russian exiles who supported Tsar Nicholas II and opposed the communists set up the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) after losing the 1920s civil war. They set up a headquarters in Serbia but later moved to New York.

Patriarch Alexy II led the liturgy, preaching a a sermon praising the end of the formal division.

"Joy illuminates our hearts," Alexy said, addressing worshippers in the vast Christ the Savior Cathedral. "A historic event awaited for long, long years has occurred. The unity of the Russian church is restored."

As Patriarch Alexy II signed the reunion agreement with Metropolitan Laurus, bells rang out, worshippers wept, and incense wapt up into the Cathedral's soaring cupola.

President Vladimir Putin attended the liturgy considered to be an important indication by Russia to reconnect with its pre-Soviet past and lay to rest the ghosts of revolution and state-sponsored atheism.

"The split in the church was the result of a deep political crisis in Russian society," Putin said after kissing an Orthodox icon in the gold-domed cathedral, rebuilt in the 1990s after the original was blown up under Stalin's rule.

"The restoration of church unity is an important condition for rediscovering the lost unity of Russian people."

A KGB agent in Communist times, Putin has openly demonstrated his Orthodox faith since becoming president in 2000 and enjoys close relations with Patriarch Alexy II.

The Church Abroad ended communion with the Moscow Patriarchate three years after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution amid the country's civil war, and cut all ties in 1927 after Russian Patriarch Sergiy, declared loyalty to the Communist government.

The Russian Orthodox Church said that Sergiy hoped to save the church from annihilation, but the breakaway group regarded the decision as a betrayal — and saw itself as the true protector of the faith.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the two churches began discussions of reunification. The Moscow Patriarchate last year disavowed Sergiy's declaration, setting the stage for Thursday's reconciliation.

Metropolitan Laurus has said that the reunion pact signed Thursday — called the Canonical Communion Act — does not mark a merger, and that his branch would maintain administrative control over its 400-plus parishes worldwide. The New York-based church reports 480,000 U.S. members.

Patriarch Alexy stressed that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia would retain its property and financial independence, and predicted that its autonomy would not change "in the foreseeable future."

ROCOR has dioceses in parts of the United States, Germany, Britain, Australasia, Ukraine and Russia.

The document establishes "canonical Communion," meaning the two Churches recognize each other's hierarchies, and the Orthodox Church Abroad will accept the final authority of Patriarch Alexy II

ROCOR will retain its separate organization, administration and property portfolio under the agreement.

"I congratulate everybody on this joyous occasion," said Metropolitan Laurus in a low, muted voice.

"There were times when it was hard to imagine that the reunification would occur,"  Patriarch Alexy said Wednesday. 

Compiled from the Associated Press and Reuters