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Alexy II addressed the new President, saying that the majority of Russians had voted for a balanced and responsible leadership, for law and order, concern for the people, and a strong country open to the world.

Speaking on behalf of the clergy and believers of the Russian Orthodox Church and everyone who cares for the spiritual heritage of Russia, the Patriarch asked the new head of state “to remember about the great responsibility of the leader to his people, history and God,” and appealed to Mr Putin to take care of the people’s welfare, both material and spiritual.

Alexy II also assured the President that the Russian Orthodox Church would help the secular authorities in their efforts to revitalise the country.

He presented to Mr Putin an icon of St Alexander Nevsky, and expressed his hope that the famous defender and patron saint of Russia also would become the holy defender of the President in his service to the country.

The Patriarch also handed over to Mr Putin the recreated icons of the Saviour and St Nicholas, which had been kept in the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers of the Kremlin until 1917, asking him to return them there.

Mr Putin replied that it was thanks to the guidance of the Russian Orthodox Church that Russia had preserved century-old traditional spiritual and moral values, which would have been otherwise lost irretrievably.

The prayer was also attended by Boris Yeltsin and his wife, and Lyudmila Putin.