Memorial service on anniversary of Metropolitan Volodymyr’s repose held in Lavra

Prayer at the grave of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan). July 5, 2025. Photo: lavra.ua

On July 5, 2025, marking the 11th anniversary of the repose of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), prayers for the repose of the ever-memorable hierarch’s soul were offered in the churches of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, according to the monastery’s press service.

After the early Divine Liturgy, the monastery brethren, led by their spiritual father Archimandrite Antony, served a memorial service (panikhida) at the cemetery by the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. Following the service, “Memory Eternal” was chanted for the departed Primate.

"Eleven years ago, His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) departed to the Lord. From the very first to the last days of his service on the Kyiv Metropolitan See, he preserved the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the purity of Orthodox teaching and canonical order," the statement said.

The Lavra’s press service also recalled that His Beatitude Volodymyr spent much of his earthly ministry in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra itself, where prayers for his repose continue to be offered unceasingly to this day.

"We believe that through the prayers of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr, our Lord Jesus Christ will have mercy on the Kyiv domain of His Most Pure Mother and restore its former glory, and will again grant peace and prosperity to our God-protected country of Ukraine," the Lavra concluded.

Let us recall that on the 89th anniversary of the birth of the reposed Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), a memorial litia was also served at his grave in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

Read also