
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 4, 1990                   TAG: 9005040275
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PATRIARCH DIES

Patriarch Pimen, who headed the Russian Orthodox Church through years of repression and a recent renewal in a more tolerant Soviet Union, died Thursday at the age of 79.

Pimen died at his Moscow residence after a long illness, the official Soviet news agency Tass said. It did not elaborate. In recent years, Pimen became increasingly frail and rarely celebrated services. When he did appear in public, he needed help to stand or move.

As patriarch of Moscow and All Russia since 1971, Pimen led tens of millions of believers in the officially atheist Soviet Union. Some critics accused him of collaboration because he operated within strict limits imposed by the Kremlin.

"Probably the way he will be remembered is as a pious monk rather than as a dynamic church leader," said Jane Ellis, a scholar at Keston College Center for the Study of Religion and Communism, based in Britain.

After a historic meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988 - the year Christianity celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of its founding in Russia - Pimen praised the Soviet leader's reforms affecting religion.

In the early years of Pimen's leadership, the Russian Orthodox Church supported official Soviet policies, especially the leadership's pronouncements on peace and nuclear disarmament that were critical of the United States.

by CNB