Russia ? Russian Orthodox leaders will move to end nine decades of bitter division today with a pact reuniting the main church in Russia with a breakaway church that split off as Communist rule took hold after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Patriarch Alexy II, who heads the largest flock in the Orthodox Christian world, is to sign the Canonical Communion Act with Metropolitan Laurus, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

The ceremony is to take place at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral – a symbol of the revival of Russia’s dominant church since the 1991 collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union. The golden-domed church is a replica of the cathedral blown up in 1931 on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The church abroad split from the Moscow Patriarchate three years after the 1917 revolution and cut all ties in 1927, after the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Sergiy, declared the church’s loyalty to the Communist government.

The Russian Orthodox Church had said that Sergiy’s move was aimed at saving the church, but the breakaway group found it unpalatable. The Moscow Patriarchate disavowed the declaration last year, setting the stage for the reconciliation.