MOSCOW, May 2 (RIA Novosti) - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church appeared reenergized and well-rested before journalists Wednesday to dismiss consistent reports he had been in a coma following bypass surgery.

"There wasn't a grain of truth to those reports," Patriarch Alexy II said after conducting a service at a convent in Moscow. "I've never undergone bypass surgery. And I did not have a cardiac arrest."

He said he had just returned from Moscow after a vacation abroad, during which he had a routine medical checkup and treatment.

Rumors about the 78-year-old prelate's cardiac arrest surfaced last week when he failed to attend the funeral for Russia's first elected president, Boris Yeltsin, and the world famous Russian conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

They also came ahead of the planned signing of an act on the restoration of canonical relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, established by emigres who fled the country in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The document, slated for signing on May 17, is seen as a milestone toward ending more than 80 years of separation with the faithful diaspora.

"Someone may have sought to spoil both the vacation and the treatment," Alexy said. "Someone may have imagined those rumors would affect the signing of the act."

The Moscow Patriarchate has been seeking reunification with its overseas branch ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The emigre church, which controls over 350 Orthodox communities worldwide, broke away in 1920, accusing fellow clergymen in Soviet Russia of collaborating with the country's Communist regime.