Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Remembering Patriarch Alexy II of Russia (1929-2008)

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II died last Friday near his patriarchal see in Moscow. He had served for eighteen and a half years as "Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia"—the last such Patriarch of the Soviet period, and the first of the newly independent Russia.

Alexy was born as Aleksei Ridiger in 1929 in a then-independent Estonia, the son of a German-Estonian father and a Russian mother. Earlier in his church career, he was suspected of collaborating with the Soviet government in the repression of Russian believers. However, in recent decades he had overseen a flourishing of the Russian Orthodox Church while also contributing to Russia's official coldness toward non-Orthodox Christians: Catholics, Baptists, and others. One of his greatest legacies is the 2007 reunion between the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had been separated for 80 years.

A BBC retrospective captures some of the contradictions of Alexy's life:

Patriarch Alexiy II, who died on Friday, had an extraordinary career, in which he switched from suppressing the Russian Orthodox Church to being its champion.

A favourite of the KGB, he was promoted rapidly through the Church hierarchy, doing the Kremlin's bidding at a time when dissident priests were thrown into jail.

As the Church's effective foreign minister, he helped cover up the repression of Russian Christians, defending the Soviet system to the outside world.

He rose quickly through the ranks, being elected head of the Russian Orthodox Church at a crucial time, in 1990, with the Soviet Union on the path to collapse.

Surprisingly, perhaps, he seized the moment, and went on to oversee the revival and flowering of the Church, exuding moral authority and inspiring devotion among his followers.

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