MOSCOW - A council of Russian Orthodox bishops has opted not to recommend canonizing Russia's last Czar Nicholas II, murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918 with his family, church officials said Thursday.

The High Clerical Council, meeting in a Moscow monastery, avoided making a final decision and asked a broader assembly grouping clergy and parishioners to take responsibility for continuing the debate on the controversial proposal.

But its moves, at a meeting Wednesday, highlighted divisions within the church over the issue and the obstacles to Nicholas' canonization.

``After a study of the state and religious activities of the last Russian Czar, the commission does not find a sufficient basis for his canonization,'' Metropolitan Yuvenaliy, chairman of the Synodical Commission on Canonization of Saints, told the council. His comments were issued by the church Thursday.

A church spokesman said: ``Because it is a very serious and important question, a wider body should take responsibility for the issue.''

The Czar was the head of the church and government until the 1917 revolution. He, his wife and their children were killed in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals on July 17, 1918, just months after the revolution which paved the way for communist rule.

The question of canonizing the Czar has been under debate since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Metropolitan Yuvenaliy said there was still no unanimity inside on the matter.

``When we think of the almost five-year journey we have had investigating the problem of the Czar family's canonization, and we see all its complexities, it becomes clear why there is still no complete unanimity among the people of the church regarding this problem,'' he said.

``It is exactly why we should not at this assembly jump to any hasty final conclusions about glorifying the family of the Czar.''

Compounding the problem, church officials say, is uncertainty over recognizing the remains of the Czar and his family, whose bones were buried unceremoniously.

Although experts believe they have found the bones in Yekatarinburg -- others doubt their authenticity. The church wants to be certain before reburying the Czar and his family.

The question is particularly topical because of President Boris Yeltsin's ill health, which has prompted some suggestions that the monarchy should be restored.

The New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which broke with the Moscow-based church after the revolution and declared itself the true keeper of the Orthodoxy faith, unilaterally canonized the Czar in 1981.

The Czar's pictures adorn many of their churches, which have slowly started to open in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

``If the Moscow church recognized the Czar it would be really surprising,'' said Bishop Valentin, who represents the Church Abroad in Suzdal, outside Moscow.

The High Clerical Council also decided to excommunicate Gleb Yakunin, a former priest and an ex-member of parliament, and the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Filaret, known to the outside world as Mikhail Denisenko.

Interfax news agency said the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had condemned the latter decision and that it did not recognize it.