VLADIMIR PUTIN TO MEET WITH HEAD OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Today president Vladimir Putin will meet for the first time this year with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.

As the Patriarch said the day before, a prize for outstanding activity to strengthen unity of Orthodox peoples - the prize of the International Fund of Unity of Orthodox Peoples - would be presented to the president. By the estimate of this fund's leadership, Vladimir Putin "does large-scale work to strengthen the spiritual, political and economic ties of the states of the East-Christian areal".

The list of the winners of this prize for the year of 2001 includes Patriarch of Serbia Pavle, chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia Armen Khachatryan and Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon Isam Fares, as well as the European Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy.