Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty says it's Metropolitan Kirill, 62, of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chosen tonight in the first succession since the end of the Soviet Union. Kirill has been the church's external relations director, essentially its Foreign Minister.
In that capacity he met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last year, and, RFE/RL says, is seen as an advocate of better ties with Rome. He's to be installed as the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to lead his flock of some 165 million faithful, in Moscow on Sunday.
Has it slipped your mind what the Great Schism of 1054 was all about? Here you go.
Photo from the Russia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
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