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MOSCOW, December 5 (RIA Novosti) - Patriarch Alexy II, who led the Russian Orthodox Church for 18 years, died at the age of 79 in his residency near the Russian capital on Friday morning, the Moscow Patriarchy said.

Alexy II became patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, now the world's largest, in 1990, shortly before the collapse of the atheist Soviet Union, and presided over a religious revival in Russia, with thousands of churches and monasteries being restored and hundreds of new ones built across the country.

In 2007, he signed a reunification act with Metropolitan Laurus, head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), after almost 90 years of separation. The foreign branch broke away in 1921, after accusing fellow clergymen in Soviet Russia of collaboration with the country's communist regime.

Alexy II voiced his open support for fellow Orthodox Serbs during the Kosovo conflict and called the declaration of independence by the Albanian province "an anti-historic event."

In a statement on the patriarch's death, the Vatican said Alexy II had led the Russian church at a time of great change, and his leadership had helped the church withstand the hardships of post-Soviet transition.

On Thursday evening, Alexy II held a church service in one of Moscow's central cathedrals to mark a major religious holiday.

The church's ruling body, the Holy Synod, is due to gather for an urgent meeting in Moscow on Saturday to pick an acting leader and make arrangements for the funeral, Bishop Mark, deputy head of the patriarchy's foreign relations department said.