Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

AP MOSCOW - The new leader of Russia's dominant church said Sunday the global financial crisis should improve citizens' values and discourage self-indulgence, state-run news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Calling the economic downturn a "blessing," Russian Orthodox patriarch Kirill said it would allow people to consider and re-evaluate their lives.

"The crisis, in a sense, may help our people reach the right attitude toward work," Kirill was quoted as saying during a visit to Russia's Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. "Everyone should ask himself whether his salary is proportional to his real contribution."

The crisis has put millions in Russia out of work, after nearly a decade of oil-fueled growth.

Kirill compared it, however, to a flood that is sweeping away economic falsehoods and excessive self-indulgence and helping to prevent the emergence of unsustainable, speculative economic bubbles, according to RIA-Novosti.

Kirill was elected as Moscow patriarch, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, in January after the death of Alexy II, who had served since before the 1991 collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union.

RIA-Novosti said Kirill also suggested celebrating June 12 _ a state holiday called the Day of Russia _ as the birthday of Alexander Nevsky, a medieval leader revered in the church as a saint.

The suggestion could fuel concern among secular Russians, who are wary of the church's close ties with the Kremlin.

It would lend religious overtones to a holiday created to mark the 1990 declaration of sovereignty by Russia's parliament, but then reinvented amid regret over the Soviet collapse and Russia's loss of control over other ex-Soviet republics.

Kirill seemed to echo that regret, saying many Russians have a negative attitude toward the holiday because it used to known as Independence Day. "Independence from whom? If it's from Kiev, then I'm against such independence," he was quoted as saying.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that Kirill said he hopes to soon visit the Ukrainian capital, though he named no date. It would be the first visit to Ukraine by the Russian Orthodox Church leader in years. The Russian Orthodox Church has a branch in Ukraine _ which like Russia is predominantly Orthodox Christian _ and has tense relations with a rival Ukrainian-based Orthodox church and with Eastern Rite Catholics, who follow Orthodox ritual but bear allegiance to the pope.