Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an Orthodox Christmas service at a local cathedral in the village of Otradnoye in southern Russia.
Orthodox Christians in several countries celebrated Christmas on January 7, and Russia's leaders were among many who attended midnight Masses.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his wife, Svetlana, attended a Christmas Mass at the cavernous Christ the Savior Cathedral near the Kremlin in Moscow, where Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill led the ceremony.
President Vladimir Putin, who has taken to attending Christmas Mass in the provinces instead of Moscow, apparently seeking to display humility and solidarity with ordinary Russians, went to a village church in the Voronezh region in southern Russia.
Images showed him standing among churchgoers and at one point crouching down to speak to a small boy.
Attendance at midnight Christmas Mass has become a tradition for Russian leaders -- some of whom, like longtime KGB officer Putin, were staunch supporters of the communist system during the Soviet era.
In an annual televised address on Christmas Eve, Kirill said, "We are living in difficult times" but assured believers: "We have never been abandoned in our history by our savior, if we appealed to him. This will not happen now."
In a separate message released by his press service, Kirill offered prayers for peace in Ukraine and suggested "external forces" were trying to divide Russians and Ukrainians echoing Kremlin accusations that the West is largely to blame for the conflict between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Kirill said 2015 is the 1,000-year anniversary of the death of Prince Vladimir, who adopted Christianity as the religion of Kievan Rus, which many Russians and Ukrainians consider a predecessor of their modern states.
"No temporary troubles or external forces will be able to break the centuries-old spiritual and cultural ties of the heirs of Kyiv's baptism," he said.
Kirill, whose critics say has aligned the Russian Orthodox Church too closely with the Kremlin and given Putin political support, said the church has done and will continue to do all it can to promote "reconciliation" and help "overcome the consequences of hatred."
Kirill's flock includes some believers in ex-Soviet republics including Ukraine and Belarus and is the largest in Orthodox Christianity.
The Georgian, Serbian, and Jerusalem Orthodox churches, as well as rival churches in Ukraine, are among Orthodox and Eastern Rite churches that celebrate Christmas on January 7, using the Julian calendar.
In Georgia, where heavy snow stranded travelers and cut off parts of the country, Patriarch Ilia II led a midnight service in the capital, Tbilisi.
Source: RFE/RL
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