Russian occupants blessed by moscow’s patriarch kirill wear crosses and get tattoos showing churches; and yet, they deliberately open fire from tanks and artillery to shell the residential neighborhoods and shrines. During his speech made from the UN Security Council rostrum on July 29, Ukraine’s permanent representative in the UN Serhiy Kyslytsia claimed that the civilian infrastructure is among the targets of the aggressor state.
«As of June, for example, the russian war has led to destruction or damage of 116,000 residential houses that used to be houses for 3.5 million Ukrainians. 183 religious sites, including 173 Christian, five Muslim and five Jewish were destroyed in 14 Ukrainian regions. Just imagine how russian soldiers blessed by the Orthodox patriarch kirill destroyed almost 200 Orthodox churches in Ukraine», marked the diplomat.
Among the shrines destroyed by Orthodox russists is the ancient Heorhiivska church in the village of Zarvorych (Brovary district, Kyiv region). The shrine survived 150 years before the ‘liberators’ came. The single-dome church was erected in 1873. The shrine itself and its parishioners witnessed a lot of historical events: the demise of the russian monarchy; the fall of the russian empire; the Bolshevik coup d’état; three man-made famine campaigns arranged by Lenin and Stalin’s regimes; the Second World War and restoration of our independence. In 1935, the Bolsheviks closed the church but instead of destroying it (as they did to thousands of other shrines), they set a grain storage in its building. In 1968, religious services in the village resumed. When Ukraine re-gained independence, the shrine was repeatedly reconstructed.
The russian occupants shelled the church on March 7. According to the witnesses, they did it on purpose. «Our parishioners said they saw it with their own eyes: when part of them (russians, - S.Ch) moved, they opened fire on living houses, and one of the shells hit the shrine’s dome. It was to their left», said Petro Kotyuk, the archpriest and the superior of Heorhiivska church. The shell set the wooden church on fire.
Another wooden shrine erected in the 19th century was completely destroyed by russists in Vyazivka village, Zhytomyr region. The church constructed in 1862 was the landmark building of the national scale. The sacred building was hit in the small hours of March 7. According to secretary of Ovruch eparchy Serhiy Stretovych, the shrine was destroyed but the bell tower survived.
The barbarians damaged the Cathedral of Holy Dormition in Kharkiv, which is another national architectural monument. It is first mentioned in the written historical sources in 1658.
In 1771-1777, a Baroque-style building was erected there – instead of the wooden shrine. The local citizens and officials sold their land parcels to donate money for construction of the new church. It’s still there. Previously, the cathedral had a golden iconostasis, which was manufactured by design of famous Italian architect Francesco Rastrelli. On March 2, during the massive attack on the city, the shell hit the cathedral where people used to hide inside. The explosion wrecked the shrine’s gold plating; window glass and stained glass was shattered. Fortunately, there were no victims.
Another irrecoverable loss is the destruction of the Church of Ascension in Lukyanivka village, 58 kilometers away from Kyiv. It was built in 1879. According to priest Andriy Vlasenko, the shrine featured a unique late-Classicalist iconostasis and the large Baroque icon of Deisus, which was a great masterpiece of the first half of the 18th century. A russian tank hit the shrine four times, and it burned down completely. The only thing that survived was the church’s milestone.
The cathedral of Holy Trinity, which is part of the Holy Trinity Illinsky Monastery (Chernihiv), which was built in 1679-1695, suffered some damage as well. The cathedral’s oil paintings were wrecked. So, the list of damage that the russian occupants dealt to Ukrainian shrines can be extended on and on.
According to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the largest number of destroyed religious buildings in Ukraine is observed in Donetsk (45) and Luhansk (40) regions. Kyiv (34) and Kharkiv (25) regions follow.
Having caused thousands of deaths, as well as damage or complete destruction of almost two hundred destroyed or damaged churches and monasteries, russians do not stop at that. They keep shouting their slogans about being a «chosen nation that can save the world for it carries the true teaching of Christ». Well, it seems a bit difficult to stop at murdering and destroying when patriarch of the russian Orthodox church kirill gundyayev supports russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. In his speech in early March, he justified the large-scale invasion of the sovereign state, claiming it is for the sake of «protection of Donbas».
The image belongs to the Ukrainian Institute of the National Memory
