The Russian Orthodox Church elected Metropolitan Kirill, 62, as its new leader on Tuesday, succeeding Alexiy II who died last month. The new leader of the 165 million-strong Church, the largest in the Orthodox world,  is seen as a moderniser who may thaw long icy ties with the Roman Catholic Church.

There was speculation before the vote that nationalists, anti-westerners and anti-Catholic forces among the clergy and monks might rally to block Kirill’s election. He seemed to take the possibility seriously enough to strike a conservative tone in recent days. In his address before the vote, Kirill spoke of “the assault of aggressive Western secularism against Christianity” and of “attempts by some Protestant groups to revise the teachings of Christianity and evangelical morality”. He also hit out at Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries, saying they sought converts in post-Soviet Russia — a key point of discord with the Vatican.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill before the vote, 27 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

But the vote showed his support was strong. Kirill received 508 votes from a total of 677 valid ballots cast. His rival, conservative nationalist Metropolitan Kliment, 59, polled just 169 votes and a third candidate, Metropolitan Filaret of Belarus, withdrew in favour of Kirill.

Kirill, whose official title is Metropolitan (senior archbishop) of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, is one of the few  senior Russian clerics to have met Pope Benedict. He favours closer ties with the Vatican and observers say he would chart a more independent course for the Russian church.

Hopes of a thaw have been fuelled by Kirill’s meetings with Pope Benedict at the Vatican in 2006 and 2007 and his optimistic comments about better relations with Rome. He even spoke about a thaw in an interview with the pope’s own paper, L’Osservatore Romano.

(Photo: Pope Benedict and Metropolitan Kirill at the Vatican, 7 Dec 2007/L’Osservatore Romano)

But Kirill has also echoed Alexei’s criticisms of Catholics on occasions. On Monday, as delegates gathered for the election, Kirill said in a newspaper interview that there was some way to go before a meeting between the heads of the two churches would be possible. “A meeting between the patriarch and the pope will become possible only when there are conclusive signs of real and positive progress on issues which for a long time have been problematic for our relations,” he said.

Here’s our video of the voting session in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral, with a long clip of Kirill addressing the Local Council (in Russian):

Thousands of Shi’ite Muslims in southern Iraq are wrestling with a choice of religion or democracy before a pilgrimage which may prevent them from voting in elections to provincial councils on Saturday.

Pilgrims from the southern city of Basra are setting out on an arduous walk hundreds of km (miles) long to the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala, far from the election centres where they are registered to vote. The pilgrimage for Arbain, or 40 days of mourning for the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Imam Hussein slain in battle at Kerbala in the 7th century, culminates in mid-February.

(Photo: Pilgrims in Kerbala for Arbain, 27 Feb 2008/Mohammed Ameen)

“Kerbala is more important than voting, and so far I haven’t seen any candidate that deserves my confidence. I still have no job after the last election,” said Mohammed Ali, one of a group of pilgrims at a roadside tent.

Read here the full story from Mohammed Abbas in Basra. Missy Ryan in our Baghdad bureau reported last week that Iraq’s religious parties could face a backlash at the polls because voters have tired of too much religion in politics.

(Photo: Russian Orthodox prelates vote for candidates for patriarch, 26 Jan 2009/pool)

There was a slightly Soviet air to the proceedings as bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church voted on Sunday for three candidates to be considered as their new patriarch. Meeting in the gold-domed Christ the Saviour cathedral overlooking the Moskva River, just a few hundred metres from the Kremlin, about 200 metropolitans and bishops had delegates badges dangling from their necks along with their usual pectoral crosses. A Soviet-style “presidium” of 16 top prelates presided over the session in the Hall of Church Councils. The proceedings started with voting for an election committee, a drafting committee and a credentials committee. Journalists covering the session couldn’t help but think of the old communist party conferences.

Seated in the middle of this “presidium,” Metropolitan Kirill — the acting patriarch and frontrunner for the top post — added to the atmosphere by chairing the meeting with a distinctively firm hand. But there were differences, of course. Voting for the three candidates was secret. And when it came time to announce the results of the vote, there was no official stamp to validate the protocol.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill addresses the Council of Bishops, 25 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

For readers outside of Russia, the only other major church election they might have seen in the news was the 2005 Roman Catholic conclave that picked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to become Pope Benedict XVI. That vote took place behind locked doors in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, beneath Michelangelo’s famous ceiling and his huge fresco of the Last Judgment behind the altar. Here the “presidium” sat in front of polished stone images of the 12 Apostles in a kind of modern icon style. Journalists were allowed in for the opening of the session,  had to leave during the pre-vote debates but could return for the actual voting and result.

When the official stamp was finally found, the announcement ceremony got underway. “Your Holiness, Metropolitan Kirill, please bless me to announce the protocol of the secret ballot vote to elect candidates for the See of the Patriarch of Moscow,” Metropolitan Isidor of Yekaterinodar and Kuban, head of the election committee, finally said from a Soviet-style rostrum. After he read out the results giving Kirill a strong lead of 97 out of 197 votes, the delegates gave the acting patriarch a long ovation.

Kirill reminded the hierarchs not to forget to bring a special liturgical mantle on Tuesday when a solemn service will be held before the start of the Local Council to elect the new patriarch. “Those without these mantles will not be allowed to take part in the service,” Kirill stressed.

(Photo: Christ the Saviour Cathedral, 26 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

The Local Council is made up of about 700 bishops, monks and laymen. Russian newspapers say the lay delegates will include members of the ruling United Russia party, one possible conduit for the influence the Kremlin is assumed to want to exercise in this election. Delegates to the Local Council can also nominate their own candidates for the final round.

The Local Council will meet in the main hall of the cathedral. Unlike the Catholic conclave, where the doors are shut during the whole process, journalists here will again be allowed in for the start and end of the session. The result is due Tuesday or Wednesday.

One more thing — there won’t be any white smoke either, another trademark of a papal election. The Russian Orthodox Church will do it the Russian way, even if it sometimes seems to have a few Soviet touches.

(Photo: Candidates for Russian Orthodox patriarch selected by the Council of Bishops. Pictured are (L-R): Metropolitan Kliment, Metropolitan Kirill and Metropolitan Filaret, 25 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

The Russian Orthodox Church election of a new patriarch next week is shaping up as a vote for or against Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad.  Already the acting head of the Church since the death of Patriarch Alexiy II last month, Kirill is the clear frontrunner and the man who other churches — especially the Roman Catholic Church — would like to see take the top post. Those two factors, though, could work against him when the Council of Bishops and the Local Council — the two bodies that conduct the election — meet.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill, 6 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

Dmitry Solovyov in our Moscow bureau has provided a rundown of the leading candidates in the election, which begins with the meeting of the Council of Bishops on Jan. 25-26, and a rundown of the leading candidates. The bishops will propose three candidates, who will then be voted on by the Local Council of 711 representatives of clergy and laity during its Jan. 27-29 session. The new patriarch will be installed on Feb. 1.

This will be the first patriarchal election since the end of the Soviet Union (the last one was in 1990, a year before communism collapsed there) and since the spectacular revival of the Russian Orthodox Church. One effect very visible abroad was the higher profile the Church has taken in ecumenical exchanges. Less visible to those outside Russia are the different currents in the Church, such as nationalists, anti-westerners, critics of ecumenism and others, who oppose that new openness and activism. If they can close ranks, they could block Kirill’s ascension.

“The vote will largely be for or against Kirill,” Antoine Nivière, editor of the Service orthodoxe de presse in Paris, told a meeting of religion journalists in the French capital this week. “If he cannot impose himself, a third man may emerge from among the older metropolitans with long experience.”

If Kirill is the candidate for a more modern and outward-looking Church, Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk is the conservative standard bearer. “Kliment is the candidate of the Russian state,” Jean-François Colossimo, a theologian at the Saint Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, told the same meeting. “Kliment gives the impression of being conservative and dependable. Kliment represents continuity in the tradition of an Russian Orthodox Church subservient to the state.”

(Photo: Funeral of Patriarch Alexiy II in Moscow, 9 Dec 2008/Sergei Karpukhin)

Colossimo’s conclusion was clear: “This is a critical choice. If the choice is between Kirill and Kliment, it’s about meeting these challenges or hibernating.

“Kirill is aware of these challenges,” he added, turning to ecumenical questions. “It will be good news for Rome to have a patriarch who knows there is a whole world out there… Rome focuses on Moscow. It’s more than half of the Orthodox world. They think, if they don’t have Moscow, they only have bits and pieces. The rest of the Orthodox world has great people, such as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and vibrant churches like Romania. But none of them have the numbers or the resources of the Moscow Patriarchate. So this election is decisive for the Orthodox world and decisive for Orthodox relations with the West. The personality of the next patriarch, the margins of manoeuvre he has, the way he deals with Orthodox liturgy or relations with the diaspora, the links he can make with the outside world and the way he deals with questions of order within the Church will determine how the Orthodox world deals with Rome and with the Protestants. It will determine the place of the Orthodox in interreligious relations and in the globalised world.“

Missy Ryan in our Baghdad bureau sees a possible drop in support for religious parties in Iraq:

BAGHDAD - When Iraqis last voted in 2005, some in Washington feared the mainly Muslim nation would veer in the direction of Iran, an Islamic theocracy, instead of becoming the moderate democracy they envisioned for post-Saddam Iraq.

The question when Iraqis elect new provincial leaders on January 31 will be whether the religious parties that have dominated politics since then can hang on to power despite a bitterness felt by voters starved of services and security.

“Religious parties didn’t keep their promises. They exploited our problems,” said Safaa Kadhim, a teacher in Basra, reflecting anger voiced across Iraq toward the major parties, mostly founded along sectarian lines and seen by many as corrupt and self-serving…

In an opinion poll by the government’s National Media Center in November, 68 percent of those questioned rejected the use of religious appeals in the campaign and 42 percent said they favored secular parties, while 31 percent supported religious parties.

Read the full story here.

(Photo: Election campaign posters in Baghdad’s Sadr City, 13 Jan, 2009/Kahtan al-Mesiary)

One of the most intriguing questions about the voting for a  new Russian Orthodox patriarch on Jan. 27-29 has been answered. Speculation about the succession began as soon as the late Patriarch Alexiy died in December, but it had an unusual extra layer of uncertainty. Orthodox church leaders sometimes elect the top three candidates and then pick the winner by drawing lots. This, they say, lets the Holy Spirit have the final say. So even a strong front-runner could be passed over.

During the Roman Catholic Church’s papal transition in 2005,  we speculated about the papabili (papal contenders) for days and explained in detail the complex rules for the election of a new pope. The “apostolic method,” as the election by lots is called, would inject additional uncertainty into the Orthodox vote — if  they used it.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill leads Orthodox Christmas service in Moscow’s Christ The Saviour Cathedral, 7 Jan. 2009/pool)

But Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the acting patriarch who is also a front-runner, has indicated that this wild card has been taken out of the patriarchal election procedure. In an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax, he said earlier heads of the Church had usually been chosen by the tsar or elected in open ballots. “His Holiness Patriarch Alexiy II was elected by secret ballot out of three candidates suggested by the Archbishop Council,” Kirill said. “Years of his ministry proved it was the right choice made by God’s will.”

Kirill made clear the Holy Spirit was not completely sidelined even with a secret ballot. He said the Church leaders believed that prayers by the council participants “backed up by prayer of the whole Church will open hearts and minds of the council members for perceiving the message of the Holy Spirit.”

Kirill, 64, has headed the Church’s department for external relations for two decades and has been active in the ecumenical movement abroad. While he is considered a front-runner, he reportedly does not have strong support among the bishops, who are considered more nationalist and less outward-looking than he is. Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk is said to be more to their liking. Metropolitan Juvenali of Krutitsy and Kolomna and Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk are also mentioned as possible contenders. as

“Top 10 Stories” lists are a perennial feature,  especially in the United States (which explains a lot of the picks below). Now that they’re all out there, I took a quick look at the “Top 10 Religion Stories 2008″ lists to see if any pattern emerged. Of course one did: “It was the election, stupid.” Even a website dedicated to pagan news found a “pagans and politics” angle to top its list.

The Religion Newswriters Association, which polls member religion reporters, has been drawing up such lists for about 30 years. Election-related stories swept the top three slots last year. They did the same in 2004 as well, but the election shared the top spot back then with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ movie. The election-dominated lists show some divergences, but the most interesting compilations were the more specialised ones down in the second list below.

Here’s a quick list of the Top 10 lists, first those dominated by the U.S. election and then others I actually found more interesting:

The Russian Orthodox are wasting no time with the election of their new leader to replace the late Patriarch Alexiy. Although Church statutes give them six months to ponder the decision, a Holy Synod meeting today decided to hold a General Council in late January to elect a successor.

“On Jan. 27 the General Council will open. It will be held on Jan. 28-29,” acting Partriarch Kirill — one of the frontrunning candidates — said in Moscow.

“Jan. 30-31 will be dedicated to preparations for the enthronement of the newly elected Holy Patriarch. The enthronement will be held on Feb. 1,” he told journalists in Moscow.

(Photo:Acting Patriarch Kirill at Alexiy’s funeral, 9 Dec 2008/Sergei Karpukhin)

Here is our video from the funeral of the late Patriarch Alexiy:

The death of Russian Orthodox Patriach Alexiy II and talk about his possible successor got Aleksandras Budrys, a correspondent in our Moscow bureau, to reminiscing about how he covered Alexiy’s election in 1990 for the official news agency TASS. Here’s his account of reporting on religion near the end of communism in Russia:

(Photo: Patriarch Alexiy II, 30 April 2000/Vladimir Suvorov)

As a TASS correspondent for religious issues, I was the first to report the election of Patriarch Alexiy II in early June 1990. The scoop was made possible because I was allowed to stay in monk’s cells at the monastery where the vote took place while all the other journalists were sent away.

The election process took a little less than three days. On the first day, all the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church gathered at the refectory church at the Holy Trinity and St Sergius monastery outside Moscow.

The press was only allowed to attend the start of the meeting and was then directed to leave the church. Since they were told the election would take more than a day, the reporters returned to Moscow. But I was allowed to stay at the monastery, as by the time I had developed good relations with the Patriarchate’s Foreign Relations Department and its spokesman.

The council meeting was interrupted only once, when one of the candidates to the post (one of the then metropolitans, Filaret of Kiev and All Ukraine, who is currently the head of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church) left the gathering without saying a word after discovering that he was not in the running.

I was allowed to spend the night in a cell with monastery novices and most of the day in another cell close to the refectory church along with the priest holder-of-the-keys and the Metropolitan of Vienna and all Austria Iriney . The latter had decided not to sit with others, preferring to stay with us and drink church wine, smoke St Moritz cigarettes — a foreign brand that was a rarity in Russia — and tell jokes that had nothing to do with religion.

In the early hours of the third day, June 7, we were all summoned to the refectory church to hear the solemn announcement of the election of Metropolitan Alexiy of Leningrad and Novgorod as His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

When I phoned in the news to TASS, the duty editor asked me to swear to God that it was really Alexiy who had been elected. I said I could not, as I was not baptised back then.

(Photo: A 27-tonne bell is installed in belltower at Holy Trinity and Saint Sergius monastery, 4 Sept 2002/Alexander Natruskin)

Has religion turned into a vote loser in U.S. elections? In covering the U.S. presidential campaign, most analysts took religion as an important vote-getting factor and asked which candidate was appealing most to which religious group. Much was made about how the Democrats were more comfortable with “Godtalk” on the trail.

Now Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has asked whether religion has turned into a serious vote loser for the more faith-friendly party, the Republicans:

“The evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh. Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party … the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.”

Is it time for the Republicans to rethink what Parker calls their “preaching to the choir?” Is there a lesson for the Democrats here?