His Holiness Alexy II

14/8/2011

Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church during an era of profound change.

His Holiness Alexy II, who died in Moscow on December 5 aged 79, was Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church during an era of profound change.

He became Patriarch in 1990, a year after the Berlin Wall had come down and at a time when the Communist bloc was on the verge of collapse. The Soviet Union had been officially atheist, but under the new Patriarch Russia was to see a remarkable revival of faith and a restoration of the Church’s moral authority.

Alexy inherited a Church which, under successive Communist dictators, had seen its places of worship vandalised or neglected to the point of ruin; now many were restored to their former glory, and worshippers flocked to them to attend sumptuous masses, some of which were broadcast on television.

Perhaps the most famous of these churches was the cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, erected in the 19th century in gratitude for the deliverance of the city from Napoleon’s armies. It had been destroyed under Stalin to be replaced by an open-air swimming pool, but was now rebuilt, reopening in 1997.

Today it is estimated that two-thirds of Russia’s population of 142 million people count themselves believers.

Negotiating his way through the period that followed the collapse of Communism was not easy, and required from the Patriarch both tact and prudence. He opposed investigations into the past activities of Church officials who were accused of collaboration with the Soviet secret services (something of which he himself had been accused), and he supported the Kremlin in its criticism of Nato strikes against Yugoslavia and the war in Iraq.

For President Putin, the Orthodox Church could play an important role in restoring national pride and prestige as well as traditional Russian values, and he therefore encouraged a harmonious relationship between Church and State. But it was always clear that the State remained master.
In April this year, in an Easter service at Christ the Saviour attended by both Vladimir Putin and his successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, the Patriarch assured the congregation that Putin was motivated solely by love for his country, not by the lust for power. “We are grateful to you, deeply respected Vladimir Vladimirovich,” Alexy said. “In the eight years of your presidency, you have done so much for Russia. And only love for Russia has prompted you to further continue your service [as prime minister] together with a person whom you trust and whom the people have come to trust.”

In return, Putin assured the Patriarch that the State would “continue to provide all possible support to the Church in its works aimed at the enlightenment and moral education of Russian citizens”.
The Patriarch even consented to take part in a television advertising campaign on behalf of Lukoil, Russia’s biggest oil company, in which he expressed his gratitude for the group’s “support of many Russian Orthodox Church projects aimed at the restoration and revival of what was destroyed in the past years”.

He also presided over an expansion of his Church’s business interests. Bottles of mineral water – each one apparently blessed by the Patriarch – were among the products sold. The Church also went into air freight and the importation of cigarettes – although the latter activity was abandoned following adverse publicity.

In 1997 the Patriarch supported a law that placed restrictions on the activities of religions other than Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. And he showed himself critical of other Christian denominations – in particular the Roman Catholic Church – for what he saw as their attempts to recruit people who he thought belonged in the Orthodox Church. He refused to consent to papal visits to Russia by both John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI, unless and until this matter had been satisfactorily resolved.

In 2004 he was unequivocal, insisting that the Vatican “must radically change its policy towards the Orthodox branch and end unfriendly premeditated actions”, although there were signs of a thaw in relations after the succession of Pope Benedict in 2005.

Alexy Mikhailovich Ridiger was born in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, on February 23 1929, the son of a priest. During the Second World War his father ministered to prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps in Estonia, and Alexy often accompanied him on these missions.

He was called early to the religious life, and it was a choice that promised danger and persecution. He attended the Theological Seminary and the Theological Academy in Leningrad, and was ordained in 1950. Eleven years later he was appointed Bishop of Tallinn and Estonia. It has been alleged that Ridiger owed his rise in part to his connections with the KGB while he was serving as a priest in Tallinn (some claimed that he had been an active agent, code-named “Drozdov”, not merely a collaborator); but both he and his Church have always fiercely denied this charge. In 1964 he was appointed Archbishop, and four years later – when still only 39 – Metropolitan.
In 1986 he became Metropolitan of Novgorod and Leningrad, and four years later, on the death of Pimen I, was elected Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was chosen not only for his administrative gifts, but also – and perhaps more importantly – for what were perceived as his diplomatic skills: in a period of uncertainty and turbulent change it was hoped that he would be a force for unity.

From the outset the Patriarch stood up for the rights of the Church, calling for religious freedom and for religious education in schools. He denounced the arrest of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and condemned anti-semitism.

In 2000 the All-Russian Council (the Church’s “synod”) recognised Tsar Nicholas II and his family as saints. Two years earlier, however, the Church hierarchy had refused to attend the Romanovs’ burial in St Petersburg, instead choosing to hold a Mass for their souls at a monastery outside Moscow; the Church claimed not to be convinced, despite DNA analysis, that the remains were indeed those of the former imperial family.

The Patriarch worked for reconciliation between the Church inside Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had broken away in 1927 and is based in the United States. In 2007 he signed an agreement with Metropolitan Laurus, the leader of the breakaway church, to work towards unity. He also fought to prevent dissident Orthodox churches in Ukraine from freeing themselves from his control.

A staunch social conservative and defender of traditional values, the Patriarch described the family as “the foundation of a strong state” and homosexuality as an “illness”.

He married, in 1950, Vera Alekseeva, the daughter of a priest from Tallinn, but the marriage was dissolved within a year.

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