Russian orthodox church heals 80-year wound

MOSCOW, May 17 (Reuters) The Russian Orthodox Church healed an 80-year rift today, when a rival faction set up in the West by refugees fleeing the Soviet Union restored ties with the mother church in a lavish Moscow cathedral ceremony.

Bells rang out from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and bearded priests wearing flowing robes and tall hats chanted and crossed themselves as the leaders of the two Orthodox factions signed a reunification document.

President Vladimir Putin attended the ceremony, another move by Russia to reconnect with its pre-Soviet past and lay to rest the ghosts of revolution and state-sponsored atheism.

Wearing a bright green robe, Patriarch Alexiy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Metropolitan Laurus, the New York-based leader of the Orthodox Church Abroad who was dressed in light blue, signed the document in front of church leaders and relatives of the last Tsar.

The document officially establishes ''canonical Communion'', meaning that the two churches recognise each other's religious hierarchies and celebrations and the Orthodox Church Abroad will accept the final authority of Moscow-based Patriarch Alexiy.

Putin, a former spy in Communist times, has openly demonstrated his Orthodox faith since he became president in 2000.

Hundreds of believers queued before the ceremony in the rain to enter Moscow's gold-domed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour - blown up by Stalin in Soviet times but rebuilt as an exact replica in the 1990s after the collapse of communism.

''We're all together now, I've a great feeling about today,'' 39-year-old Russian emigre Andrei Sybbottin, said as he waited wearing a beige suit. He is a cook in Canada but said he was considering moving back to Russia because of the reunification of the churches.

END OF CIVIL WAR White Russian exiles who supported the last Tsar Nicholas II and opposed the communists set up the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad after losing a civil war in the 1920s. They established a headquarters first in Serbia but later moved to New York.

The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad cut ties with the orthodox hierarchy in Russia in 1927 because it said they had fallen under the influence of the ''godless'' Bolsheviks.

''After all this time the question 'when did the civil war in Russia end', we can now answer: 'May 17, 2007','' wrote religion analyst Andrei Zolotov in the Vedemosti newspaper.

On Saturday the two church leaders will consecrate a new church in southern Moscow on a site where communists murdered priests and monarchists.

The church abroad represents about a third of the Russian Orthodox diaspora and the most traditional, pro-monarchist faction.

Some of its members say they will leave the church because of the re-unification, believing the church in Moscow has been irredeemably tarnished by its association with the communists.

Under the agreement signed today, the two Orthodox churches will retain separate organisational and financial structures.

REUTERS GL PM1246