The Russian Orthodox Church has selected 62-year-old Metropolitan Kirill as its new patriarch.

Kirill, Metropolitan of Kaliningrad and Smolensk, received 508 votes in a secret ballot of the Church Council in Moscow while his challenger Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk got 169 votes.

Both the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin congratulated Kirill.

The previous patriarch was Alexey II (died at 79), and the church still did not disclose the cause of death.