Orthodox Church warns against hasty decisions over Lenin Reburial

(RIA Novosti) 25/5/2011 The Russian Orthodox Church urges against rushed decisions over the removal of the embalmed body of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin from the mausoleum on Red Square, a senior clergyman said. “It is obvious that the condition of Lenin’s body does not fit into Russia’s cultural tradition…but we should take into account the opinions of various social groups and avoid making decisions that entail social upheavals,” the chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church and Society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. Eighty-seven years have passed since the body of Vladimir Ulyanov, known worldwide under his pseudonym Lenin, was placed in a glass sarcophagus and displayed in a specially built granite mausoleum near the Kremlin wall