Acting Russia Patriarch faints, recovers at Alexiy funeral

The interim leader of the Russian Orthodox Church was led away briefly from the funeral ceremony for late Patriarch Alexiy II today after apparently feeling unwell, a Reuters photographer said. Metropolitan Kirill was led away from the service he was...

The interim leader of the Russian Orthodox Church was led away briefly from the funeral ceremony for late Patriarch Alexiy II today after apparently feeling unwell, a Reuters photographer said.

Metropolitan Kirill was led away from the service he was presiding over at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral by aides, the photographer at the ceremony said. A Kremlin press official said Kirill had fainted.

The metropolitan returned after a short break to continue participating in the service, which has already lasted five hours.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.