Religious figures and Cuban government officials on Sunday laid down the first stone of what will become the first-ever Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) on the island nation of Cuba. According to the head of ROC’s foreign relations department, the church will constitute “a monument to Cuban-Russian friendship.”

“The past can reunite with the present, with the result being a common future,” Metropolitan Kirill told the Associated Press, alluding to the past alliance between Cuba and Russia during the Cold War.

Sunday’s event, attended by about 300 people, began with a two-hour mass in the old Roman Catholic Convent of San Francisco in Habana Vieja, followed by a procession through the streets of the city’s historic district.

At the empty plot that will house the new church, Kirill filled a deep hole with religious artifacts, and covered the opening with the first symbolic stone, followed by cement and more stones.

According to AP, Kirill, who traveled from Moscow to Cuba for the consecration, the church would also pay homage to the thousands of Russian workers, soldiers and technicians who cooperated with Cuba for three decades before the fall of the Soviet Union.

Though it was officially atheist after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, Cuba has since then established better relationships with the church reaching a climax in January 1998 with the historic visit of Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II. The Cuban state government had also removed references to atheism in the constitution more than a decade ago.

Currently, there are an estimated 8,000 Orthodox Christians in Havana. The Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of the world’s eastern Orthodox communions, has approximately 80 million followers in Russia and the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The new Russian Orthodox Church, also being financed by the Cuban government, is expected to open its doors in about a year.