The ceremony was attended by Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov and Chairman of the Patriarchal Council on Culture Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Pskov and Porkhov. The monument was blessed following the unveiling ceremony.
Metropolitan Pitirim (secular name Konstantin Nechayev) was born on January 8, 1926, in Michurinsk, Tambov Region, into a priest’s family. Over the years, Metropolitan Pitirim served as an inspector of Moscow theological schools, an executive editor of the Moscow Patriarchy’s Journal and a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Holy Synod Commission on Publishing and Clerical Press.
Metropolitan Pitirim was among the founders of the Russian Cultural Foundation and supervised the development of an extraordinary programme of festivities to mark the Days of Slavonic Literature and Culture. He was also actively involved in creating the Russian Union of the Afghan War Veterans.
His name is connected to an entire era in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. For more than 30 years, he was the head of the Moscow Patriarchy’s Publishing Department that served as a dialogue platform between the church and the cultural and research community.
Metropolitan Pitirim passed away on November 4, 2003.