Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended an Orthodox
Christmas service on Saturday at the church in his hometown of Saint
Petersburg where he said he was secretly christened as a baby in Soviet
days.
Both members of the Russian ruling tandem, Putin and President Dmitry
Medvedev, attended services for Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated
on the night of January 6 and on January 7, a public holiday.
Putin, who hopes to win a third presidential term in March elections,
went to a midnight service in a cathedral in the northwestern city of
Saint Petersburg and was shown on television standing in the front row
of believers.
After coming out of the cathedral, he told journalists: "This is a
special cathedral for me. I was christened here," in comments published
on his official website.He said that his mother and a neighbour took him secretly to be
christened, fearing the disapproval of his father, a member of the
Communist Party, which promoted atheism as the official state ideology. Putin was born in 1952, a year before the death of Stalin.
"My father was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
He was a consistent, strict person. They did this in secret from him --
or at least they thought it was in secret," Putin said in unusually
personal comments.
He added that funerals for his mother and father were held in the same cathedral.
Putin served as a member of the Soviet KGB secret service, which also
frowned on religious beliefs, but has openly talked of his faith since
becoming a politician and often meets top church officials.
In a Christmas message released Saturday, Putin called for the Church
to continue 'developing constructive cooperation with state and public
institutions' in spheres including 'counteracting extremism'.
Medvedev and his wife Svetlana attended a midnight service at the
Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, led by the head of the Russian
Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
The Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas and other religious holidays
according to the Julian calendar, while other Christian churches have
adopted the later Gregorian calendar.
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