U.S. Copts Association

By Michael Stott

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Patriarch Alexiy II, a staunch conservative who revived Russia’s Orthodox Church after the collapse of communism and forged close links with the Kremlin, died on Friday at the age of 79.

The Moscow Patriarchy said Alexiy, who led the powerful church for 18 years, died at his residence in Peredelkino, a former Soviet writers’ colony outside Moscow.

The official cause of death was heart failure but diplomats said he had been suffering from cancer. The day before his death, Alexiy officiated at a religious ceremony in Moscow.

Russia’s political leaders, who were close to Alexiy and view the Orthodox Church as a key pillar of support, were quick to praise him.

President Dmitry Medvedev, on an official visit to India, hailed the patriarch as “an outstanding religious figure” and canceled a planned trip to Italy to return to Moscow.

“He was a true shepherd, who throughout his life was an example of spiritual fortitude and noble human deeds,” Medvedev told state television.

Prime Minister and former president Vladimir Putin — a former communist spy who is now a devout Orthodox worshipper — said Alexiy did “a great deal for the formation of a new Russian statehood.”

Despite Alexiy’s repeated criticism of the Catholic Church for trying to poach Orthodox converts and his resistance to a meeting with the Vatican, Pope Benedict was generous in his praise of the Russian religious leader.

Benedict, whose conservative social views chimed with those of Alexiy, praised the Patriarch for “the rebirth of the Church, after the severe ideological repression which led to the martyrdom of so many witnesses to the Christian faith.”

“I also recall his courageous battle for the defense of human and Gospel values, especially in the European continent,” he said.

That battle included a 2007 appearance before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe when Alexiy described homosexuals as sinners suffering an illness comparable to kleptomania.

Such views are not unusual in Russia and after news of the patriarch’s death, weeping worshippers visited Moscow churches and lit candles to mark the occasion. Some told stories of the Patriarch’s healing powers, and wondered about his successor.

ALEXIY’S BLESSING

At the Kazansky Cathedral at the edge of Red Square, Natalia Levchuk, 48, told a reporter that Patriarch Alexiy had cured her asthmatic son when he blessed them at a service 10 years ago.

“As we approached him for the blessing, it seemed like he was radiating a kind of heat. For all the years that have passed we have not had a single problem with his illness,” she said at the steps of the chapel.�