RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH SELECTS METROPOLITAN KIRILL AS ITS NEW PATRIARCH
PanARMENIAN.Net
28.01.2009 13:22 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Russian Orthodox Church has selected 62-year-old
Metropolitan Kirill as its new patriarch to succeed Patriarch Aleksy
II, who died on December 5 after guiding the world’s largest Orthodox
Church through nearly two decades of reconstruction and revival in
the post-Soviet era.
A seasoned operator after long service as head of the church’s foreign
relations section, Kirill was elected on Tuesday by an overwhelming
majority in a ballot of church leaders in Moscow’s ornate cathedral
of Christ the Saviour.
Kirill, Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, received 508 votes
in a secret ballot of the Church Council in Moscow while his challenger
Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk won 169 votes.
"I accept and thank the Church Council for my election as Patriarch
of Moscow and All Russia," Kirill said solemnly after the results
were announced, before leading the congregation in an Orthodox liturgy.
Addressing the incense-filled gathering earlier, Kirill had
made a strident call for church unity and urged the faithful to
resist Protestant and Catholic proselytizing, dampening hopes of a
transformation in poisonous ties with Rome, the AFP reports.