Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexiy II was buried yesterday after a long and elaborate funeral ceremony at which he was praised for reviving the nation's Christian faith after decades of communist rule.
State broadcasters cancelled normal programming to broadcast live the half-day ceremony for Alexiy, who died on Friday aged 79 after 18 years leading the worlds biggest Orthodox church.
Thousands of ordinary Russians lined the streets of Moscow to see the coffin pass as bells tolled. Some mourners wept.
President Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin, in black suits and black ties, attended the funeral. Both kissed Alexiy's robed body on a catafalque surrounded by white roses in the heart of Moscow's gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral.
"He spoke in the language of eternity, he understood that only love could unite people," the church's interim leader, Metropolitan Kirill, said in a speech delivered beside the coffin, which was draped in a green, red and white shroud.
Kirill (62), was helped away by aides at one point during the lengthy ceremony. The church said he was in good health and had not fainted, and he subsequently rejoined the funeral.
Orthodox patriarchs and metropolitans (senior bishops) from Russia and abroad stood in the vast cathedral as priests chanted the liturgy, followed by funeral rites.
Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, head of the patriarchy's department for cooperation with the army and law enforcement forces, praised Alixiy's role in the church's revival after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
"The number of churches multiplied to 30,000 and the number of monasteries to 700 from 18 [under Alexiy]," he said. "This is a fantastic number, so fantastic it is difficult to believe, but it is true."
Alexiy's opponents say he allowed the church to become a junior partner of the Kremlin when Mr Putin was president, and the patriarch failed to shake off allegations he worked as an informer for the Soviet KGB. The church denied this.
The presidents of Moscows close allies Belarus, Armenia and Serbia, at least 11 Russian cabinet ministers, top Kremlin officials and leading businessmen also attended the funeral.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican's pontifical council for Christian unity, led a delegation from Rome, with whom the Russian Church has at times had strained relations.
Throughout the funeral, the coffin lay in the centre of the cathedral, which was rebuilt in the 1990s after being destroyed by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
At the catafalque's head stood a floral display depicting the Orthodox cross with its extra two bars.
As the ceremony ended, top clergy said prayers for Alexiy's soul and lined up to file past the coffin and kiss him farewell.
The coffin was carried out of the cathedral over a path of white roses, said to be his favourite flower.
A black hearse drove the body in a convoy escorted by police through the cold, rainy streets to the 18th-century Epiphany Cathedral, where Alexiy was laid to rest in a private ceremony.
Pensioner Olga Larchenko said: "I feel today that a great saintly man has left us. I hope he will pray for Russia when in heaven. I attended his sermons and he was such an approachable and simple man in his everyday life."
Kirill, whose official title is Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was chosen by a 12-man Holy Synod of top church leaders as interim leader last Saturday.
The Holy Synod will today announce a date for convening the Local Council, a body of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy and laity which will choose a new patriarch.