MOSCOW, December 5 (RIA Novosti) - The lying-in-state ceremony for the late Russian Orthodox Church leader Alexy II will begin on Saturday evening at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and continue through the night, the Moscow Patriarchy said Friday.

Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, who led the Russian Church for 18 years, died at the age of 79 in his residency near the capital on Friday morning.

A senior church official said heart failure was believed to be the cause of death. The patriarch was known to have suffered from health problems in recent years.

Alexy II became patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990, shortly before the collapse of the atheist Soviet Union, and presided over a religious revival in Russia, with thousands of churches and monasteries being restored and hundreds of new ones built across the country.