DUSHANBE, December 5, 2008, Asia-Plus – The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexiy II, has died, Church officials say.
The patriarch died on Friday morning, aged 79, the Church told the BBC.
They did not give a reason for his death at his residence outside Moscow, but he had been sick for some time. No date has been set yet for the funeral.
Alexiy II was credited with helping restore the moral authority of the Russian Orthodox Church after decades of repression under communism.
However, relations with the Roman Catholic Church remained frosty and he repeatedly refused to meet the late Pope John Paul II, or his successor, Benedict XVI.
The outspoken patriarch had led the world”s biggest Orthodox church since 1990, presiding over a flock that by most estimates numbers two-thirds of Russia”s population of 142 million.
He brought the scattered branches of the Russian Orthodox church back under the control of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said he was shocked by the death. “I respected him deeply,” he said.
Patriarch Alexiy II was the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia anf the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
He was born as Aleksey Ridiger in Tallin, Estonia to the family of Russia emigrants; he is descendant of the German Baltic noble family of von Ridiger, a branch of which adopted Orthodoxy in the 18th century.
