MOSCOW — In a somber service that echoed with ancient chants, Russia paid final tribute Tuesday to Patriarch Alexy II, who rebuilt the dominant Orthodox Church after 70 years of communist repression but was sometimes criticized for forging close ties to the Kremlin.
White-robed priests, government officials and two relatives of the last czar stood shoulder to shoulder in the crowd that thronged the soaring Christ the Savior Cathedral for a six-hour service for Alexy, who died Friday at age 79. He was later buried in a marble sarcophagus at the Epiphany Cathedral across town.
Chosen as patriarch in 1990, a year before the Soviet breakup, Alexy turned his church into the world’s largest and richest Orthodox denomination — a remarkably successful effort to revive the enormous power the institution wielded before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
Alexy also renewed the church’s historically close ties with the Kremlin, earning the church considerable financial support as well as privileges beyond those granted Russia’s other officially recognized faiths.
Tuesday’s funeral followed nearly three days of round-the-clock viewing of the patriarch’s body. An estimated 80,000 people waited for hours in the rain outside the cathedral to file past his coffin.
“He’s done so much for us while he was alive, and we all hope he’ll help protect Russia and Russians from heaven,” said Alexandra Makanina, 58, a former schoolteacher.
