The Russian Orthodox Church has enthroned, on February 1, its new patriarch, the first leader of the world’s largest Orthodox church to take office since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The ceremony enthroning Patriarch Kirill took place at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, itself a symbol of the church’s post-Soviet revival. The vast structure is a reconstruction of a 19th-century cathedral that was dynamited in 1931 under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Kirill was elected by a synod composed of 711 parsons (all 220 bishops and representatives of the clergy, monasteries and laicity). He succeeds Patriarch Alexy II, who died in December.
Under Alexy, Kirill was in charge of foreign contacts and was the point-man in delicate efforts to seek a reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church. (media)