home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- MILESTONES, Page 82
-
-
- DIED. Patriarch Pimen, 79, politically accommodating head
- of the Russian Orthodox Church who presided over the faith's
- revival after decades of repression; in Moscow. As Patriarch
- of Moscow and All Russia, Pimen led millions of believers in
- a country that was officially atheist. After a historic meeting
- with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, on the 1,000th anniversary of
- the birth of Russian and Ukrainian Christianity, Pimen praised
- the Soviet leader's efforts to grant more religious freedom.
- The following year Pimen was chosen to serve in the Soviet
- parliament. Critics hope that his successor, as yet unnamed,
- will be the first Soviet religious leader to be independent of
- secular authority.
-
-
-
-
-
-