The leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church gathered at a rebuilt cathedral in Moscow yesterday for a jubilee-year Bishops' Council, with the historic question of sainthood for the murdered last tsar on the agenda.
Patriarch Alexiy II, the Church's head, opened the proceedings at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, a 19th century landmark demolished by Stalin but rebuilt in the 1990s by Moscow's current mayor, Mr Yuri Luzhkov.
The building, much larger than classical Russian churches and supporting a huge gold dome and glowing white marble facade, has come to symbolise the resurrection of Russia's church after 70 years of officially atheist communist rule.
So has the renewed reverence for Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, who was killed with his family by Bolsheviks in April 1918.
Nicholas is poorly regarded by western historians - the Encyclopaedia Britannica says he is "generally judged as an inept and autocratic ruler" - but he has become a focus of esteem in a post-soviet Russia eager for heroes from the past.
Church officials have recorded miracles associated with the tsar, including icon portraits of him that weep beads of fragrant liquid.
Remains shown by DNA testing to be those of the royal family were buried with great pomp alongside other tsars in St Petersburg in July, 1998. The ceremony was attended by then President Boris Yeltsin, although Patriarch Alexiy stayed away in a dispute over the authenticity of the bones.
The tsar and his family are among a list of hundreds of candidates for sainthood to be discussed at the four-day council, and it was not clear when a decision would be taken. News reports said other items on the agenda would be a church social policy, including a position on contraception.
Despite Russia's economic woes, the church has reclaimed properties once confiscated by the state, opened successful business ventures and enjoyed the fruits of a building boom, especially in the capital. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour cost hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild, money critics said could have been spent on alleviating the plight of the poor.
Speaking in the opulent new underground conference centre built beneath the cathedral complex and opened in time for the council meeting, the patriarch told the gathered clerics they should not be distracted by the church's new-found material prosperity.
"Of course we must continue to build and decorate churches and show concern for the living conditions of senior clergy, but it should not be considered normal when members of the congregation buy expensive articles of worship and build comfortable houses for clerics," he said.