Patriarch Kirill pays tribute to Gorbachev’s contribution to ensure cooperation between church and state

Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church congratulated the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on his 80th anniversary, Interfax reports.

“The end of the 20th century has seen a number of changes in this country. The cooperation between the government authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church was substantially facilitated by your decisions,” the patriarch’s telegram posted Wednesday on the Moscow Patriarchate’s official website is quoted as saying.

According to the patriarch, such cooperation encouraged “people to come back to the spiritual and moral sources of their national life.”

“In the meantime, the government adopted the much sought-after law to guarantee the freedom of religion,” he recalled.

During Gorbachev's rule the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was legalized after 40 years of catacomb existance.