{"id":1107,"date":"2008-12-08T18:02:03","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T18:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade.php"},"modified":"2008-12-08T18:02:03","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T18:02:03","slug":"interim-russian-orthodox-leade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade","title":{"rendered":"Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy&#8217;s Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) Metropolitan Kirill, the Russian Orthodox leader of the provinces of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, has been chosen as the interim leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, following the death Friday (Dec.<br \/>\n5) of Patriarch Alexy II.<br \/>\nKirill, 62, was chosen by secret ballot by the Holy Synod, a ruling group of 12 senior clergy who met Saturday outside Moscow, Reuters reported.<br \/>\nHe is considered to be a reformer in his approach to relations with the Russian government and the Roman Catholic Church. He leads the church&#8217;s external relations department and has appeared often on television representing the church.<br \/>\nThe next patriarch must be chosen within six months and Kirill is viewed as one of four candidates in the running, the news agency reported.<br \/>\nAs Alexy lay in state on Sunday in the gold-domed Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, Kirill conducted a two-hour service at his coffin.<br \/>\nAlexy&#8217;s funeral is scheduled for Tuesday.<br \/>\nThe patriarch, who died of heart failure at age 79, was elected in 1990 and helped his church revive after it had been repressed under communism.<br \/>\nPresident Bush offered condolences to members of the church and the Russian people.<br \/>\n&#8220;The president&#8217;s heart is with the community of Russian believers as they continue to rebuild the rich spiritual traditions of Russia,&#8221; said White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.<br \/>\n<em>By Adelle M. Banks<br \/>\nReligion News Service<br \/>\nCopyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) Metropolitan Kirill, the Russian Orthodox leader of the provinces of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, has been chosen as the interim leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, following the death Friday (Dec. 5) of Patriarch Alexy II. Kirill, 62, was chosen by secret ballot by the Holy Synod, a ruling group of 12 senior clergy who&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy&#039;s Death<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy&#039;s Death\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(RNS) Metropolitan Kirill, the Russian Orthodox leader of the provinces of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, has been chosen as the interim leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, following the death Friday (Dec. 5) of Patriarch Alexy II. Kirill, 62, was chosen by secret ballot by the Holy Synod, a ruling group of 12 senior clergy who&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-08T18:02:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy's Death","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy's Death","og_description":"(RNS) Metropolitan Kirill, the Russian Orthodox leader of the provinces of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, has been chosen as the interim leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, following the death Friday (Dec. 5) of Patriarch Alexy II. Kirill, 62, was chosen by secret ballot by the Holy Synod, a ruling group of 12 senior clergy who&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-12-08T18:02:03+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade","name":"Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy's Death","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-08T18:02:03+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-08T18:02:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/interim-russian-orthodox-leade#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Interim Russian Orthodox Leader Chosen After Alexy&#8217;s Death"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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