Kiev, July 24 (RIA Novosti) - The remains of Kievan Prince Vladimir will return to the local Monastery on the Caves later today. Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine-the prelate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-is bringing the relics back from the Rostov-on-Don diocese, in Russia, church spokespeople told the Novosti Ukraina news agency Sunday.
Prince Vladimir (years of reign 980-1015) introduced Kievan Rus to Christianity in 988. His remains were uncovered by archeologists in 1635, in a marble sarcophagus of the Church of the Tithes-Kievan Rus' first stone cathedral, built in 988-996 and destroyed by Batu Khan in 1240.
Part of the relics went to the Moscow Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral. The other part was placed at the Caves Monastery, where it remained almost until World War II. In prewar years, the Kiev-based relics were loaned to Leningrad for an anthropological study, on whose basis a sculpture of Prince Vladimir was to be created, but went missing during the war.
The relics that are now returning to Kiev were in the 1980s transferred from the Moscow Kremlin to the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Rostov-on-Don.
