The establishment of the Holy Synod was one of Peter’s most radical reforms. From his youth, Peter had detested the conservative Muscovite clergy and their endless liturgies and rituals. When Patriarch Adrian (1637–1700), the head of the Russian Orthodox Church who had challenged Peter's absolutist power, died, the tsar refused to appoint another prelate to the post, and this situation continued until 1721. In that year, he issued a document, the Ecclesiastical Regulation, which replaced the Patriarchate with a state committee, the Holy Synod, which consisted of eleven clerics. The body also included a layman with the title of Procurator who kept watch over the members and controlled church property.