Church leaders remember Russia's first popularly elected president

Published: 2007-04-25

MOSCOW (CNS) -- Russian church leaders remembered the life of Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet president and first popularly elected leader in the country's history. "Russian Catholics received news of the first president's death with deep sympathy for his family and relatives," said Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Moscow. "For Catholics, his period in government was a time for rebuilding a hierarchy, regaining places of worship, creating communities and reviving the church. Archbishop Kondrusiewicz noted that the availability of religious services nationwide was "living witness to the benign rule" of Yeltsin, regardless of how his actions might be viewed by "politicians of various parties and coalitions, economists, commentators and other experts." Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow acknowledged the late president as a "bright politician and political leader" who had favored close church-state ties. Yeltsin died April 23 at the age of 76 from organ failure. He was buried April 25 in Moscow's Novodevichye cemetery and was the first Russian leader buried with Christian rites since Czar Alexander III in 1894.

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .