Word: nikodim
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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DIED. Metropolitan Nikodim, 48, Russian Orthodox Archbishop of Leningrad and Novgorod; of a heart attack during an audience with Pope John Paul I; in Vatican City. Consecrated a bishop in 1960 and an archbishop a year later, Nikodim served as a president of the World Council of Churches. Though he refused to criticize Moscow's restrictions on religious freedom, he was respected by other denominational leaders for his ecumenism. Nikodim headed his church's delegation at the accession of the new Pope, who administered his last rites...
...risen steadily through the church hierarchy since entering a monastery at the age of 17. Knowledgeable observers think that he will have to maneuver so cautiously between the reformers and the government that the real power in the church will be wielded by Leningrad's Metropolitan Nikodim, 41, a better-known and articulate spokesman for Soviet policy in world ecumenical circles...