Moscow - The Russian Orthodox Church will elect a new leader Tuesday for the first time since the collapse of the officially atheist communist regime in 1991.

A full church council of 711 bishops, monks and lay people from the former Soviet Union gathered in Moscow's massive Christ the Savior Cathedral to vote on a short-list of three candidates selected by church hierarchs on the weekend.

Clergy clad in ceremonial garb intoned a liturgy that resonated against the gilded vaults of the cathedral to open the proceedings Tuesday.

The interim church leader, Metropolitan Kirill, is seen as the favourite since former Patriarch Alexei II died last month.

Alexei II presided over the sweeping revival of the church in the near two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he was criticized by some for allowing the church to fall too much under the Kremlin's sway.

Kirill, 62, holds an eminently public role as the church's top diplomat, the same role filled by Alexei II. It was a branch of the church which enjoyed relative strength in Soviet times, but many senior clergy in the department have since been accused of collaborating with the KGB.

Many hope Kirill's liberal stance will allow for a rapprochement with the Vatican, which split with the Orthodox Church almost 1,000 years ago. In December 2007, Kirill held a sensitive meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome and voiced optimism relations may improve.

But experts say Kirill has worked hard in the past month to win the support of more conservative strains of the church and reform his reputation as more of a politician than spiritual leader.

Church traditionalist have rallied around Kirill's closest rival Metropolitan Kliment, the powerful head of the church's administration at its Moscow headquarters.

Observers say Kliment has stronger ties to the Kremlin, which may be wary of Kirill's independence and unpredictability at the head of the Orthodox Church.

In 2006, Kliment was appointed by then-president Vladimir Putin to a government seat, to chair the Public Chamber's committee on Russia's spiritual and cultural heritage. Experts took it as a signal of the Kremlin's favour.

Belarussian-based Metropolitan Filaret is the third candidate for the post. (dpa)