Rev. Martin E. Lavin
Deceased: 2005-10-09
Diocese: RICHMOND
CSM Graduation Year: 1972
Father Martin E. Lavin, who has served as pastor of St. Jude Catholic Church in Franklin and the Shrine of the Infant of Prague in Wakefield since 2002, died on October 9 at a nursing home in Alexandria. He was 64 and had been ill for several months with lung cancer. Born May 14, 1941 in Chester, Pa., Father Lavin attended HolySaviourSchool, Linwood, Pa., and graduated from St. James High School in Chester in 1959. He attended college and completed theology studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia in 1967. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1967. He later did postgraduate study at Villanova University and received a master of arts degree in classical languages in 1968 and a doctorate o n canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1972. Father Lavin came to the Diocese of Richmond in 1985 and was incardinated into the Richmond diocese October 14, 1987. He served at the Diocesan Tribunal from 1985 to 1994, serving as Vice Officialis from 1988 to 1994. He was the pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Martinsville from June 1994 to June 2001, after which he had a year-long sabbatical. Father Lavin is survived by six brothers and sisters, Nancy Olsen, Claymont, Del., Maureen Christopher, Palm Coast, Fla., William Lavin, Spring Hill, Fla., Daniel Lavin, Jacksonville, Fla., Dennis Lavin, Mickleton, N.J., Patricia Berry, Claymont, Del.; and many loving nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews. A Christian Wake Service will be held on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at St. Jude Church in Franklin. The family will receive visitors beginning at 6:30 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Thursday at 11 a.m. at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, with a viewing beginning at 10 a.m. A Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Friday atHolySaviourChurch, Linwood, Pa. with burial in the family plot at Linwood.
Published in theRichmond Times-Dispatch on 10/12/2005.
