Nezhin, Ukraine, September 25, 201
Photo: foma.ru After struggling with a serious illness, His Eminence Metropolitan Irenei of Nezhin and Priluki reposed in the Lord at 5:35 PM on Saturday, reports the site of the Nezhin Diocese.
Met. Irinei was born on June 11, 1963 in the village of Rpotukha, in the Uman Region of the Chersky Province, Ukraine. His family moved to the village of Ladyzhynka in the same region soon after his birth.
In the fall of 1981 he entered the preparatory department of the Kiev Engineering-Construction Institute, and in 1982 he enrolled in the first year. In 1983, he left the institute of his own will an entered the Moscow Theological Academy.
He became a brother of the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra in the fall of 1984, being tonsured on February 26, 1985 with the name Irinei, in honor of St. Irenaeus of Lyons. He was ordained to the diaconate on April 6, 1985 in the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, and to the priesthood on November 30, 1986 in the Refectory Church at the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra.
In 1987, upon graduating from the seminary, the Educational Committee under the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church sent him to the Holy Dormition-Pochaev Lavra. In the spring of 1991, he was transferred to the Holy Dormition-Kiev Caves Lavra.
He graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy in 1992, and was appointed as a teacher at the Kiev Theological Seminary, serving as inspector from 1993 to 1994.
He was elevated to the rank of archimandrite in April 1994, and carried out the obedience of dean of the monastery beginning in September 1996.
On December 26, 2006 he defended his thesis “The History of Orthodox Female Monasticism in Ukraine in the Twentieth Century.” In 2007, he received the academic rank of associate professor.
He was consecrated as a bishop on June 10, 2007 in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev Caves Lavra. He was elevated to the rank of archbishop on August 28, 2014, and to the rank of metropolitan on July 28, 2017.
The body of Met. Irinei was met on Franco Square in Nezhin at 2:00 PM yesterday, and carried in procession to the St. Nicholas Cathedral, where the funerary All-Night Vigil was celebrated. Parishioners came during the service to bid farewell to their archpastor.
The Divine Liturgy began at 5:00 AM in the cathedral this morning, after which his body was transported to the Kiev Caves Lavra, where his funeral was served at 11:00 AM in the lavra’s Dormition Cathedral.
According to Met. Irinei’s will, he will be buried in the monastic cemetery at Holy Protection Covent in Krasnogorsk in the village of Baikavka in the Zolotonosha Region of the Cherkasy Province.