The Head of the Russian Orthodox Church is coming to the Smolensk region

The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill will start his fifth visit to the Smolensk region on Saturday, August 29, with a visit to the Sychevka district where the great Slavic Dnieper River originates.

At 16:00 His Holiness will visit the Monastery of St. Vladimir, built with his blessing in just five months. Here he is going to perform a small consecration of the temple and take a tour of the monastery complex, and then proceed to the source of the Dnieper and perform its consecration at 16:45.

The same evening, the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church will arrive in Smolensk, where he will visit the place of the treacherous murder of the Prince Gleb in 1015 in the ancient Smyadyn. Here, at 17:40, His Holiness Patriarch is going to hold a prayer service for the Saint Princes Boris and Gleb - the first Russian saints canonized as martyrs.

On Sunday, August 30, at 10:00 the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill will hold a Divine Liturgy at the Assumption Cathedral of Smolensk, and then a prayer service dedicated to the start of the academic year and a consecration of the restored building of the Smolensk clerical consistory. After that, the Orthodox believers together with the clergy will walk in a religious procession from the Assumption Cathedral to the Vladimirskaya embankment.

At 13:30 the festival "At the source of the Dnieper", dedicated to the 1,000th anniversary of St. Vladimir’s death, will begin on the Vladimirskaya embankment of the regional center. The opening and consecration of the monument to Grand Prince Vladimir - Baptist of Rus is going to be the culmination of the celebration, after which His Holiness Patriarch Kirill will address the residents and guests of the Smolensk region.