Yeltsin toasts champagne with, from left, Bordyuzha, Primakov and Alexy II

MOSCOW (CNN) -- The Russian prime minister, the presidential chief of staff and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church helped President Boris Yeltsin celebrate his 68th birthday Monday.

But Yeltsin remained out of the public view at a sanitarium outside Moscow where he was recuperating from a reported stomach ulcer.

Video released by the Kremlin showed Yeltsin raising what appeared to be a champagne toast with Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, chief of staff Nikolai Bordyuzha and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II. It was the first picture of the president released in five days.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that Yeltsin would spend the rest of his birthday with his family, His wife, Raina, the agency said, planned to make cabbage pie -- a traditional Russian treat -- and walnut pies for the celebration.

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Yeltsin was released Saturday from nearby Central Clinical Hospital, where he spent two weeks undergoing treatment for the ulcer.

Health troubles have kept him away

The president's health has kept him away from his Kremlin offices more than half the time since his re-election two years ago. He has been slowed by respiratory infections, pneumonia and prolonged heart trouble that led to quintuple bypass surgery in 1996.

Despite Yeltsin's frequent absences, his presidential powers still cast a long shadow. It was Yeltsin, after all, who essentially wrote Russia's present constitution, which gives him almost unlimited power.

Primakov

But in the wake of Yeltsin's current health problems, Communists in the lower parliament house Duma are pursuing impeachment hearings against the president.

On Monday, hard-liner Viktor Ilyukhin told a meeting of the Duma's impeachment committee that Yeltsin was guilty of "genocide" against Russians, due to the economic chaos of market reforms.

Yeltsin is unlikely to be impeached, thanks to the Russian constitution. And he is not likely to resign in the face of his troubles.

"One thing is clear, the resignation of the president before his term ends can be discussed only from the medical point of view," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, a leading political analyst. "No political considerations or enemies' intrigues will make Yeltsin step down if he himself does not think he wants to."

Yeltsin's health has caused increasing concerns over his fitness to govern. And Russia's presidential elections come next year. Former spymaster Primakov is a potential candidate to be Yeltsin's chosen heir in a race likely to include Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Communist Gennady Zyuganov, regional governor Alexander Lebed and liberal economist Grigory Yavlinsky.

Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty and Reuters contributed to this report.