Church to regain landed property?

The Russian Orthodox and other established Churches are to receive three million hectares of farmland in compensation for Soviet-confiscated property, said Alexis II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, as he held conference with top officers of the Federation Council, parliament's upper house.

The conference proceeded behind closed doors, and no comments came after it.

A recent initiative of the Federation Council agrarian committee to restore prerevolutionary landed property to the Church clashed with pointed public criticisms. Secular authorities have not spoken up on the issue for now.