Photo-Report of the burial service of Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine

July 2014

On 7 July 2014, the feast day of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, the Divine Liturgy and the burial service for the deceased Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine were celebrated in the square before the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Laura of the Caves in Kiev. Numerous worshippers, who had paid their last respects to the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, were praying at the service.

Metropolitan Onufry of Chernovtsy and Bukovina, Locum Tenens of the Metropolitan See of Kiev, officiated. Concelebrating with him were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, representative of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia; the assembly of hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; and other hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate: Metropolitan Vladimir of Kishinev and All Moldova; Archbishop Mark of Berlin, Germany and Great Britain (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia); Bishop Leonid of Turov and Mazyr, representative of the Byelorussian Exarchate; and Bishop Peter of Ungheni and Nisporeni.

Representatives of the Local Orthodox Churches came to Kiev to pay their last respects to His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine; among them – Archbishop Job of Telmessos and Bishop Ilarion of Edmonton (Orthodox Church of Constantinople); Metropolitan Timotheos of Vostra (Orthodox Church of Jerusalem); Metropolitan Gerasim of Zugdidi and Tsaishi and Metropolitan Sergiy of Nekress (Georgian Orthodox Church); Bishop Antonije of Moravica (Serbian Orthodox Church); Archbishop Abel of Lublin and Chełm (Polish Orthodox Church); Bishop Alexander of Toledo and Archimandrite Alexander (Pihach) (Orthodox Church in America).

During the burial service, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk read out the message of condolences of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Also read out were condolences of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, Georgian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Polish Orthodox Church, Orthodox Church in America, Orthodox Church of Moldova, and of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

After the burial service, the body of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine was carried in the procession with the cross to the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the Far Caves of the Laura and was buried there, website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reports.

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