The Russian patriarchate was not restored until 1917, when the All-Russian Council (Sobor) elected St. Tikhon as Patriarch of Moscow. Although several commissions of the Synod had planned for a church council since 1905, Tsar Nicholas II believed a council would be destabilizing. After the February Revolution and the abdication of the Tsar on 15 March, the Synodal higher church authority under the provisional government convened the council, which opened on 15 August (28 August NS), the Dormition of the Virgin. The assembly continued meeting despite the onset of the October Revolution, electing Patriarch St. Tikhon on 5 November 1917. Many other issues were deliberated and decided at the council, including decentralizing the church administration, allowing women to participate in church governance, and determining that priests and laity would have a voice in church councils alongside bishops. The Petrine Synodal higher church authority and the Ober-Procurator were abolished forever.