Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, the former archbishop of Havana, who helped re-establish relations between Cuba and the United States and revive Catholicism on the island, died on Friday in Havana. He was 82.

His successor, Archbishop Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, announced the death. In June he said that Cardinal Ortega was in a weakened state because of terminal cancer.

Cardinal Ortega retired in 2016, a decision that had long been expected because he was 79; the church requires bishops to submit their resignations when they turn 75. He, like many other bishops, was allowed to serve longer at the pope’s discretion.

With his resignation, he left behind a Cuban church whose reach was greater than at any point since Fidel Castro swept to power in 1959. Far from the days when Roman Catholics were marginalized and the cardinal, as a young priest, spent time in a labor camp, the church was openly active, building new places of worship, tending to the poor and prodding the government to speed up economic reforms.