Schemi-Metropolitan Platon, former head of the Feodosia and Kerch diocese, has died

Death after a prolonged illness

Schemi-Metropolitan Platon (in secular life Vladimir Udovenko), who previously headed the Feodosia and Kerch diocese, died on November 6, 2026, in Moscow at the age of 85. This was reported by Life.ru, citing the press service of the Crimean Metropolia: according to its information, the clergyman died after a prolonged illness at the Sklifosovsky Research Institute of Emergency Medicine. The press service's statement said that the hierarch

His path of service and his final months

Platon devoted more than half a century to church service. In 1973 he was consecrated Bishop of Argentina and South America, then held various church positions, and from December 2012 he led the Feodosia and Kerch diocese. In July 2024, the Holy Synod of the ROC released him from the administration of the diocese, thanking him for his many years of labors, and granted him retirement, designating Crimea as his place of residence. Already after his retirement, on July 23, 2026, Platon received the great schema at the Sechenov Clinical Center in Moscow — the tonsure was performed with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill; he kept his name, but now in honor of the martyr Platon of Ancyra.

The second death of a hierarch of the Crimean church within a year

Platon became the second former head of the Crimean Metropolia to die in 2026: as Life.ru previously reported, on January 17, 2026, in Simferopol, at the age of 86, died Metropolitan Lazar (Shvets), who headed the Simferopol and Crimea diocese for more than 30 years — from 1992 to 2023 — and in recent years had also been in retirement.