Russian Orthodox patriarch buried in elaborate funeral

RUSSIAN Orthodox patriarch Alexiy II was buried yesterday after a long and elaborate funeral ceremony at which he was praised for reviving the nation’s Christian faith after decades of communist rule.

State broadcasters cancelled normal programming to broadcast live the half-day ceremony for Alexiy, who died on Friday, aged 79, after 18 years leading the world’s biggest Orthodox church. Thousands of Russians lined the streets of Moscow to see the coffin pass as bells tolled. Some mourners wept. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin attended the funeral. Both kissed Alexiy’s robed body on a catafalque in the heart of Moscow’s gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

“He spoke in the language of eternity, he understood that only love could unite people,” the church’s interim leader, Metropolitan Kirill, said in a speech delivered beside the coffin, which was draped in a green, red and white shroud.

Orthodox patriarchs and metropolitans (senior bishops) from Russia and abroad stood in the vast cathedral as priests chanted the liturgy, followed by funeral rites.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, led a delegation from Rome, with whom the Russian Church has at times had strained relations.