Boris Yeltsin liked Patriarch Alexy II very much and took an interest in what happens to one’s soul after death, Archpriest Georgy Studyonov, rector of St. Michael’s at Troparyovo, Moscow, recalls.

‘It was in our church that Boris Nikolayevich made the sign of the crossed for the first time, as he himself admitted. He didn’t know how to do it, though he was baptized. It is not an easy thing to do for the firs time’, Father Georgy said in an interview with the Izvestia daily published on Wednesday.

Later though, the priest said, the former Soviet leader ‘had no problems with it whatsoever’.

Boris Yeltsin frequented the church at Troparyovo and made a donation for its restoration. He arranged a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan not far away from his office in the Kremlin, Father Georgy related.

‘We would always begin a meal with a prayer. He respected and liked His Holiness the Patriarch very much. We occasionally sang together ‘Many Years of Life’ to His Holiness’, said the priest who was the one who baptized Yeltsin’s grandchildren.

The rector of St. Michael’s also said that Yeltsin also asked him questions about afterlife during the funeral service for his mother.

‘He took a keen interest in it’, the priest stressed.

The article above was found on Google and was published originally on Interfax-Religion