Russian President Vladimir Putin has led ceremonies launching a monument to St Vladimir Duke of Kiev, who brought Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Kievan Rus in 988. Moscow City authorities put up the monument on Borovitskaya Square in front of the Kremlin’s southwester Borovistkaya Tower at the initiative of the Russian Military-Historical Soviety.
Photo: kremlin.ru
Earlier today, Vladimir Putin has laid flowers to the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on the Red Square. The ceremony was attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill and the heads of other religions, including the chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis, Ravil Gainutdin, the Supreme Mufti, the Chairman of the Central Spiritual Russian Muslim Board, Talgat Tajuddin, the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, the head of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Korniliy, the archbishop, Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow, Paolo Pezzi, and the head of the Traditional Buddhist Sangha of Russia, Pandito Hambo Lama XXIV – Damba Badmayevich Ayusheev.
The opening took place as Russia marks the Day of People’s Unity, dedicated to the liberation of Moscow from foreign intervention in 1612, when Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky formed consolidated militia and saved the country from destruction.
