Easter: church head laments conflict in ‘historical’ Russia

MOSCOW (AP) — Worshipers including President Vladimir Putin crowded into Moscow’s vast Christ the Savior Cathedral for Easter services led by Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill, a supporter of Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. The services began late Saturday and were to extend long into Sunday as white-robed clerics circulated through the cathedral swinging smoking censers and a choir sang and chanted. Most Western churches observed Easter on April 9, but the Russian Orthodox Church follows a different calendar. In a video message broadcast on state televison before the service, Kirill lamented the “grave events taking place on our Russian historical land,” echoing the claim of Putin and other Russian officials that an independent Ukraine is essentially a fiction.