His Beatitude the Most Reverend Metropolitan Ireney (Bekish) of New York succeeded Metr. Leonty as primate of the Russian-American Metropolia upon his death. Under his leadership the central administration continued to mature and negotiations actively began with the Patriarch of Moscow to resolve the ill feelings that had developed since the Bolshevik Revolution, and which resolved into the granting of autocephaly to the Metropolia as the Orthodox Church in America.