Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad. Photo: ITAR-TASS

World church leaders welcome election of Kirill as Russian Patriarch

Ecumenical leaders have welcomed the election of Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad as the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia and expressed hopes of greater church unity under his helm, reports Ecumenical News International.

The 62 year-old will become Patriarch Kirill I, after being elected by an overwhelming majority of a council of the entire Russian Orthodox Church on 27 January in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

He succeeds Patriarch Aleksei II, who died on 5 December after guiding the world's largest Orthodox church of more than 140 million people through the turbulent post-Soviet era.

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TAGS: Russia Metropolitan Kirill Patriarch of Moscow Christian leaders Orthodox church

[01/29/2009]

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