==1970: Autocephaly for the OCA==
At the same time that the [[Church of Russia]] was about to declare the autocephaly of the Metropolia, it announced that it was going to begin communing [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholics]]. Vladimir Moss, a former ROCOR layman, writes in his ''[http://uk.geocities.com/guildfordian2002/History/OrthodoxChurch20thCenturyP1.htm The Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century]'':
:...in October, 1969, Metropolitan Nicodemus gave communion to Catholic students in the Russicum in Rome. This was followed, on December 16, by a decision of the Russian Holy Synod to give permission to Orthodox clergy to administer the sacraments to Old Believers and Catholics... The decision of the Moscow Patriarchate to give communion to Catholics put the other Russian jurisdiction in North America, the Metropolia, into a difficult position; for in the early 1960s the Metropolia (a body in schism from the ROCA since 1946) had been, through Fathers [[John Meyendorff]] and [[Alexander Schmemann]], among the most conservative participants in the ecumenical movement.[http://uk.geocities.com/guildfordian2002/History/OrthodoxChurch20thCenturyP3.htm]
He further writes that the autocephaly about to be received from Moscow was part of a secret deal between the Metropolia and Moscow, and that the price of the Metropolia's autocephaly was to be the newly revitalized [[Church of Japan]]:
:However, this Church had been secretly negotiating with the Moscow Patriarchate for a grant of autocephaly. According to the deal eventually agreed upon, the patriarchate was to declare the Metropolia to be the autocephalous Orthodox Church of America (OCA) in exchange for the Japanese parishes of the Metropolia coming within the jurisdiction of the patriarchate. This deal, which was recognized by none of the other Autocephalous Churches and was to the advantage, in the long run, only of the patriarchate and the KGB, was made public in December, 1969 – just at the moment that the patriarchate announced that it had entered into partial communion with the Catholics. Thus the former Metropolia found that it had been granted autocephaly by a Church that was now in communion with the Catholics.[http://uk.geocities.com/guildfordian2002/History/OrthodoxChurch20thCenturyP3.htm]
In October of 1970, the synod of the ROCOR sent the following declaration to the bishops of the Metropolia:
