Kirill Installed; Russia's President Stresses Church-State Separation

In Moscow on Sunday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended the three-and-a-half-hour service installing the newly-elected Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill I. Yesterday Ekklesia and ITAR/TASS both reported on the ceremony at which Kirill stressed the importance of Church unity in the face of suggestions by Ukraine's president that the Ukrainian Orthodox church to break away. (See prior posting.) At a reception, President Medvedev spoke of church-state relations, saying in part: "In the renewed Russia relations between the state and the Church are built according to the constitutional principles of the freedom of conscience and belief, non-interference of state bodies in the activities of religious organizations." Kirill responded that there should be a "symphony" in the relationship between the Church and public power.