Convened when the Revolution was at its most critical point, the Church Council became a platform for people who by conviction and habit continued to link religion with politics. But, despite that, one of the Council's acts was of decisive importance for the later development of the 'life of our Church the re-establishment of the Patriarchate. This act gave the Russian Orthodox Church a firm basis for establishing church life in accordance with the canons in the new and still unstable condi tions of a state structure which had only just been born in the fire of the Great October Socialist Revolution.