Russian Orthodox Church loses leader

Agence France-Presse

"Yes, he has died," a church spokesman said by telephone after Russian news agencies said the patriach died earlier Friday at his residence outside Moscow. There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Within minutes of the announcement of Alexy II's death, state television broadcast video footage of him and officials past and present voiced their condolences.

"I am shocked," said Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president who held power in the Kremlin when Alexy II became the head of the church in 1990. "It is hard to find words. I had immense respect for him," Interfax news agency quoted Gorbachev as saying.

"This is an irretrievable loss for all Russian Orthodox people, wherever they live," Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house of parliament, said.

Patriarch Alexy II was an establishment figure that restored the authority of the church after decades of Soviet repression.

Born Alexei Ridiger, Alexy II made his ecclesiastical career at a time when the church was controlled by Soviet authorities before forging an alliance with the new Russian state under presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin.

The patriarch was an impressive character with a benign expression and moral authority among millions of Russian believers but his personality was always locked in by the deeply hierarchical nature of his role.

Alexy II took stances on foreign policy issues that often matched the Kremlin line, criticizing NATO strikes against Yugoslavia, the U.S.-led war in Iraq and defending the rights of ethnic-Russians in the former Soviet Union. His role in the international arena was marked above all by wariness of Catholics, whom he accused of "proselytism," and he refused repeatedly to meet Roman Catholic pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI.