Romania buries Church patriarch

The service was attended by some 2,000 mourners

The late leader of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Teoctist, has been buried in a sumptuous ceremony in the capital, Bucharest.

The 92-year-old patriarch died on Monday of a heart attack after surgery.

His two decades as leader of the Orthodox Church in the Black Sea state was not without controversy.

In 1999, he welcomed the late Pope John Paul II to Romania in a trip aimed at healing a rift with Rome that had lasted some 950 years.

Crypt burial

An estimated 2,000 mourners and some 150 foreign Orthodox priests, as well as Catholic and Protestant clerics, attended the service.

The patriarch's coffin circled the cathedral in the centre of the city before it was buried in a crypt beneath.

On Wednesday, Pope Benedict recalled his predecessor's visit to Romania: "Both men were filled with a determination to write a new page in the history of our communities," he said in a statement.

Historians say the Church had a subservient relationship with the pre-1989 communist regime.

Teoctist, head of the Church since 1986, faced criticism for his failure to intervene to prevent Nicolae Ceausescu's destruction of dozens of churches.

In 2000 he asked for forgiveness for concessions the Church had made during communist rule.