After the service, Patriarch Kirill, Mrs Medvedeva and pupils from Radonezh Orthodox Secondary School, released doves into the sky from the steps of the cathedral.
The Annunciation is one of the church’s most important feast days, commemorating the Archangel Gabriel telling the Virgin Mary the good news of the forthcoming birth of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of the World.
In Russia there has long been a tradition of releasing birds on this day which was revived in 1995 with the blessing of his Holiness Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and All Russia.