Moscow, Russia - Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II celebrated 15 years as leader of the nation's dominant church, leading a service in a Kremlin cathedral and receiving high praise from President Vladimir Putin.
Alexy, elected by a 1990 church assembly, led a service in Assumption Cathedral, where his predecessors are buried.
In a face-to-face meeting shown on state-run television, Putin thanked the 76-year-old Alexy for "everything you and the Russian Orthodox Church are doing for interfaith harmony and for the spiritual rebirth of our country."
He said Alexy, whose stint as patriarch began as the officially atheist Soviet Union was collapsing, led the church through tough years when "it was emerging from the ruins."
Putin also said he would never forget conversations he had with Alexy focusing on "the situation of ordinary citizens of our country."
Alexy said that "the 15 years that have passed really were not easy, because to revive what was destroyed is not so easy. But we have found the common tasks that we have with the state, with society." He said that "the church is separate from the state, but not from the people."
The Russian Orthodox Church claims two-thirds of Russia's 144 million people.