Easter: church head laments conflict in 'historical' Russia

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

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 phalanxes of 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 start of 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.

Kirill called for prayers “so that peace and a common good life, fraternal relations again unite our peoples, who were once the one people of united Russia.”

Putin was shown among the standing worshipers, holding a thin red candle.