Patriarch Alexy II (or Alexius II, ; secular name Aleksei Mikhailovich Ridiger ; 23 February 1929 – 5 December 2008) was the 15th Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Elected Patriarch of Moscow in 1990, eighteen months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he became the first Russian Patriarch of the post-Soviet period.
Family history Alexey Mikhailovich Ridiger was a patrilineal descendant of a Baltic German noble family. His father, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Ridiger (1900–1960), was a descendant of Captain Heinrich Nikolaus (Nils) Rüdinger, commander of a Swedish fortification in Daugavgrīva, Swedish Livonia who was knighted by Charles XI of Sweden in 1695. Swedish Estonia and Swedish Livonia became part of the Russian Empire in the aftermath of the Great Northern War, in the beginning of the 18th century. Friedrich Wilhelm von Rüdiger (1780–1840), adopted Orthodox Christianity during the reign of Catherine the Great. From the marriage with a Polish woman, Sophie Dorothea Jerzębska,The spelling of the names here is transliteration from Russian in the Patriarch's official biography – АЛЕКСИЙ II Orthodox Encyclopaedia (2000) was born the future Patriarch's great-grandfather, Yegor (Georgi) von Rüdiger (1811–1848).
After the October Revolution of 1917, Alexey Ridiger's father Mikhail became a refugee and the family settled in Estonia, first in Haapsalu where a shelter was provided by priest Ralph von zur Mühlen. Later Mikhail moved to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, where he met and married in 1928 to Yelena Iosifovna Pisareva (1902–1955), who was born and later died there. Alexey Ridiger's father graduated from the theological seminary in Tallinn in 1940 and was ordained a deacon and later a priest and served as the rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Tallinn. Later, he was a member and the chairman of the Diocesan Council in Estonia.
Patrilineal family tree
Heinrich Nikolaus (Nils) Rüdinger(died 1711)Peter von RüdingerKarl Magnus von Rüdinger (1753–1821)Friedrich Wilhelm (Fyodor Ivanovich) von Rüdiger(1780–1840)Yegor (Georgi) Fyodorovich Ridiger(1811–1848)Aleksandr Yegorovich Ridiger (1844–1877)Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Ridiger (1870–1928)Mikhail Aleksandrovich Ridiger (1900–1960) Aleksei Mikhailovich Ridiger(1929–2008)Christine Elisabeth von Wickede(1680–1721)Elisabeth WiesnerCharlotte Margarethe von Maltitz(1758 – 1786)Sophie Dorothea JerzębskaMargarethe HamburgerYevgenia Germanovna Gizetti(died 1905)Aglaida Yulievna Balts(1870–1950)Yelena Iosifovna Pisareva(1902–1955)
Biography Early life Alexey Ridiger (born Aleksei Rüdiger) was born and spent his childhood in the Republic of Estonia that had become a Russian Orthodox spiritual center and a home to many Russian émigrés after the Russian October Revolution in 1917. He was baptised into the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. From his early childhood Alexey Ridiger served in the Orthodox Church under the guidance of his spiritual father, Archpriest Ioann Bogoyavlensky. He attended Tallinn's Russian Gymnasium.
After the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, Alexey's family was listed for arrest in order to be deported from Estonia according to the Serov Instructions, but were not found by the NKVD because instead of staying in their home they were hiding in a nearby hovel.
During the occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany (1941–1944) Alexey with his father Mikhail, who had become an Orthodox priest on 20 December 1942, visited the Soviet prisoners of war in German prison camps in Estonia. Such activity was tolerated by the German occupational authorities because it was seen as effective anti-Soviet propaganda. After Soviet forces returned to Estonia in the autumn of 1944, unlike most of the people with Baltic German roots, the Ridiger (Rüdiger) family chose to stay in Estonia instead of evacuating to the West.
During the war Joseph Stalin had revived the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union. Having been closed during the war time, after the Soviet annexation of Estonia the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Tallinn was reopened in 1945. Alexey Ridiger, who had become a Soviet citizen served as an altar boy in the cathedral from May to October 1946. He was made a psalm-reader in St. Simeon's Church later that year; in 1947, he officiated in the same office in the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Tallinn.
Ordination and priesthood
He entered the Leningrad Theological Seminary in 1947, and graduated in 1949. He then entered the Leningrad Theological Academy, and graduated in 1953.Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Biographical Note, biography, on the Moscow Patriarchate Official website.Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. Alexis II, 19 January 2008
On 15 April 1950, he was ordained a deacon by Metropolitan Gregory (Chukov) of Leningrad, and on 17 April 1950, he was ordained a priest and appointed rector of the Theophany church in city of Jõhvi, Estonia, in the Tallinn Diocese. On 15 July 1957, Fr. Alexy was appointed Rector of the Cathedral of the Dormition in Tallinn and Dean of the Tartu district. He was elevated to the rank of Archpriest on 17 August 1958, and on 30 March 1959 he was appointed Dean of the united Tartu-Viljandi deanery of the Tallinn diocese. On 3 March 1961 he was tonsured a monk in the Trinity Cathedral of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius.
His name (secular Алексей, clerical Алексий) was not changed when he became a monk, but his patron saint changed from Alexius of Rome to Alexius, Metropolitan of Kiev whose relics repose in the Theophany Cathedral in Moscow.
Tenure as bishop On 14 August 1961, he was chosen to be the Orthodox Church Bishop of Tallinn and Estonia, succeeding his father-in-law, John (Alekseev), who was promoted to Archbishop of Gorky and Arzamas. On 23 June 1964, he was elevated to the rank of archbishop. On 22 December 1964, he was appointed Chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate and, ex officio, a permanent member of the Holy Synod. On 25 February 1968, when he just turned 39 years old, he was elevated to metropolitan.
In 1986 he was released from the post of the Chancellor, which he had held since 1961 and which allowed him to be based in the Moscow Patriarchy's headquarters, and transferred to Leningrad; the decision was effectively made by the Council for Religious Affairs and was later presented by Alexy as punishment for his letter in December 1985 to Mikhail Gorbachev with proposals of reforms to church-state relations. Shortly after Alexy's death, the then Chairman of the Council Kharchev strongly denied that and said the decision was aimed at "defusing the tense emotional atmosphere within Patriarch Pimen's inner circle".Патриарх демократической волны Nezavisimaya gazeta 17 December 2008. In an earlier interview Kharchev suggested the removal had been requested by Patriarch Pimen "for a year".К. М. Харчев : «Церковь повторяет ошибки КПСС» Konstantin Kharchev's interview published 29 December 2001.
Alexy was one of the presidents of the Conference of European Churches from 1964. In March 1987 he was elected President of the CEC Presidium and Advisory Committee, in which post he remained until November 1990.ЖМП (Russian edition of The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate), 1991, # 2, p. 61. Criticized for Ecumenism by some within the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexy responded by saying that such were opinions expressed not by representatives of the church but expressed as private views of free citizens.Pospielovsky, pp.396–397
KGB
There have been reports, beginning in the 1990s, that Patriarch Alexy II had been a KGB agent. These reports originate with Gleb Yakunin, a member of the committee created for the investigation of the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 and chaired by Lev Ponomaryov, who thereby gained the access to secret KGB archives.Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), In March 1992 he published materials alleging cooperation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the KGB. He published code names of several KGB agents who held high-rank positions in the Russian Orthodox Church including Patriarch Alexius II. The Russian church defrocked Yakunin in 1993. The allegation was repeated by Yevgenia Albats in 1994.Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia — Past, Present, and Future. 1994. , page 46. Western media reported on these allegations in 1999Russian Patriarch "was KGB spy" The Guardian 12 February 1999 and again in 2007/8.Confirmed: Russian Patriarch Worked with KGB, Catholic World News. Retrieved 29 December 2007.Chekists in Cassocks: The Orthodox Church and the KGB – by Keith Armes, DemokratizatsiyaThe Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Aleksii II and the Russian State: An Unholy Alliance? – by Leslie L. McGann, Demokratizatsiya The Patriarch was also named as a "KGB collaborator" in a 2015 interview with defected former KGB general and suspected double agent Oleg Kalugin.
It is alleged that the Estonian branch of the KGB recruited Alexy as an agent on 28 February 1958, just days after his 29th birthday, assigning him the codename "Drozdov" (he had completed his dissertation on Metropolitan Filaret Drozdov). The report detailing his recruitment makes clear that the KGB contacted Alexy, then still a simple priest, because they expected him to succeed John (Alekseev) as Bishop of the Russian Orthodox diocese of Tallinn and Estonia (and he was in fact appointed to this post less than three years later).The Drozdov Files: Patriarch Alexy II and the KGB Among his KGB assignments was one in 1983, when he was sent to the Pskov-Caves Monastery to "pacify" rebellious monks.
The reports further allege that Alexander Grigoryev, a KGB officer in Leningrad under cover as Orthodox priest Fr Alexander was his case officer for a while. According to Oleg Gordievsky, Alexy II worked for the KGB for forty years, and his case officer was Nikolai Patrushev. In February 1988, exactly 30 years after his recruitment, the KGB chairman awarded him the Certificate of Honour.
Patriarch Alexy II acknowledged that compromises were made with the Soviet government by bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, himself included, and publicly repented of these compromises: "Defending one thing, it was necessary to give somewhere else. Were there any other organizations, or any other people among those who had to carry responsibility not only for themselves but for thousands of other fates, who in those years in the Soviet Union were not compelled to act likewise? Before those people, however, to whom the compromises, silence, forced passivity or expressions of loyalty permitted by the leaders of the church in those years caused pain, before these people, and not only before God, I ask forgiveness, understanding and prayers."From an interview of Patriarch Alexy II, given to "Izvestia" No 137, 10 June 1991, entitled "Patriarch Alexy II: – I Take upon Myself Responsibility for All that Happened", English translation from Nathaniel Davis, A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy, (Oxford: Westview Press, 1995), p 89. See also History of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, by St. John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco, 31 December 2007 At the same time, the Patriarch has called the reports making him out to be "KGB agent" mere exaggerations of such necessary compromises he had to make with the Soviet authorities.Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy – Putin's Espionage Church "Patriarch Alexey II told Kalugin the following: 'Why are you exaggerating what happened? Yes, we collaborated with the KGB, even I did. But it was a struggle for peace, for disarmament! There’s nothing wrong with that!'"