The relics of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir have arrived in Vitebsk

On July 4, the reliquary with a particle of the relics of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir arrived at the Holy Assumption Cathedral in Vitebsk.

The holy relic was met and personally delivered to the church by Archbishop Dmitry of Vitebsk and Orsha. The relics will stay in the regional center until July 7. The reliquary has been in Belarus since June 20 as part of the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the repose of Prince Vladimir, by the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus'. Besides Vitebsk, the holy relic has visited Brest, Grodno, Minsk, and Mogilev.

In 988, Prince Vladimir chose Christianity as the state religion of Kievan Rus' and was baptized under the name Basil. Later, he decreed that on a specific day, the city residents should come out to the banks of the Dnieper River to accept baptism.

The saint was buried on July 15, 1015, in a marble sarcophagus under the vaults of the Desyatinnaya Church in Kyiv. Subsequently, the church was destroyed, and the remains of Prince Vladimir lay under the ruins. In 1635, Metropolitan Peter Mogila of Kyiv found the relics. Later, a part of them was transferred to Moscow to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, where they were kept in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. During the Soviet period, the holy relic was stored in the museum collections of the Kremlin. In 2010, the relics in the original reliquary were solemnly transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church and placed in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Sergey Lyashuk, "Vitebskiye Vesti"