Based on an "ukase" (decree) issued by Patriarch Tikhon, Holy Synod and Supreme Council of the Church stated that "dioceses" of the Church of Russia that were cut off from the governance of the highest Church authority (i.e. the Holy Synod and the Patriarch) should be managed independently until such time as normal relations with the highest Church authority could be resumed, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia was established; by bishops who had left Russia in the wake of the Russian Civil War. They first met in Constantinople, and then moved to Sremski-Karlovci, Yugoslavia. After World War II, they moved their headquarters to Munich, and 1950 to New York City, New York, where it remains to this day.