Moscow (AsiaNews) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting a delegation of Russian Orthodox priests today in the Kremlin to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the restoration of the Moscow Patriarchate. Patriarch Aleksij II celebrated mass yesterday in Christ the Savoir Cathedral to remember the 18 November 1917 event. Russian media point out that the anniversary is coming just two weeks before elections to the Duma (parliament).

For many the meeting is an effort to secure votes from religious voters for United Russia, headed by Putin. But both government and the Russian Orthodox Church reject this interpretation.

The date, 18 November 1917, is very important because it marks the restoration of the patriarchate that Peter the Great had abolished in 1721 and replaced with a government department, the government’s ‘Holy Synod.’ The first metropolitan installed was Tikhon, but the Russian Revolution had just broken out and set in motion a process of persecution against all Churches.

The Russian Orthodox Church has 125 million members in Russia. Although only 4 per cent are actual practicing believers, the Church works as a kind of moral compass for the entire country, said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.

For this reason Putin will ask the Church to promote United Russia among its followers, said Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank.

Tsar Vladimir, as Putin’s opponents have started to call him, has been one of the keenest political leaders to embrace religion and has made regular public appearances with Aleksij II in religious functions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed any political context to Monday's meeting.

“The president is actively maintaining relations with all the religions of the country,” Peskov said Friday. “This is a very big day for our predominant religion.”

The Church's mandate is to “enlighten people about their social and moral responsibility to decide the country's fate,” Moscow Patriarchate official Georgy Rybykh is quoted as saying in the The Moscow Times. But for him Monday's meeting with Putin was “strictly a religious affair.”

Putin held a meeting with representatives of the country's Muslim population earlier this month.

The Council of Russian Muftis is backing a pro-Putin Muslim movement and its chairman has already called on Muslims to go out and vote.