Alexy II
| Alexy II | |
|---|---|
| Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' | |
 |
|
| Church | Russian Orthodox Church |
| See | Moscow |
| Installed | 10 June 1990 |
| Term ended | 5 December 2008 |
| Predecessor | Pimen I |
| Successor | Kirill I |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 17 April 1950 |
| Consecration | 3 September 1961 by Nikodim of Leningrad |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Alexey Mikhailovich Ridiger |
| Born | 23 February 1928 Tallinn, Estonia |
| Died | 5 December 2008 (aged 80) Peredelkino, Moscow, Russia |
| Buried | Epiphany Cathedral at Elokhovo |
| Spouse | Vera Alekseeva (1950–1951) |
Patriarch Alexy II (or Alexius II, Russian: Патриарх Алексий II; secular name Alexey Mikhailovich von RidigerRussian: Алексе́й Миха́йлович Ри́дигер; 23 February 1928 – 5 December 2008) was the 15th Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Elected Patriarch of Moscow eighteen months prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, he became the first Russian Patriarch of the post-Soviet period.
Alexey Mikhailovich Ridiger's father Mikhail Ridiger (1900–1960), born in Saint Petersburg, was a descendant of a Baltic German family. His ancestor Captain Heinrich Nicolaus (Nils) Rüdinger, the commander of a Swedish fortification in Dünamünde, Swedish Livonia, was knighted by Charles XI of Sweden in 1695. After 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, another forefather of Alexy II, Friedrich Wilhelm von Rüdiger (1780–1840), adopted Orthodox Christianity during the reign of Catherine II of Russia. From the marriage with Darya Fyodorovna Yerzhemskaya was born the future Patriarch's great-grandfather, Yegor (Georgi) von Rüdiger (1811–1848).
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