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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

The Tragic History of Ukrainian Churches

14 December, 1999 - 00:00

Magnificent church structures have long graced the cities
and villages of Ukraine. Erecting temples with great mastery, Ukrainian
architects put in the stone and wood the experience of generations of creative
church builders. On completion of the inner decoration and consecration,
the majestically built structure would become a particular and unmatched
creation of the Ukrainian national spirit.

The construction of church-type buildings is gradually
gaining wide currency. Churches grew both in terms of architectural and
artistic finesse and in number. Very often, even small Ukrainian towns
had several. For example, there were six functioning churches in a small
town of Lysianka, Zvenyhorod district, Kyiv region, in the seventeenth
century: St. Michael’s built in 1723, of that of the Transfiguration (1730),
Ascension (1730), St. George’s (1723), St. Nicholas’s (1718), and of the
Assumption (1720). A Roman Catholic cathedral was also built in Lysianka
in the nineteenth century. The latter was attached to a Franciscan monastery
until 1832, and in 1861 a new third class stone church with 119 desiatynas
of land was hallowed (a desiatyna was 2.7 acres — Ed.).

Most widespread on the territory of ethnic Ukrainian lands
were Orthodox churches the names of which cover a wide spectrum. In particular,
in the nineteenth century, the area of Lysianka povit, Zvenyhorod district,
had six functioning churches named one of the Holy Veil, three of the Holy
Virgin, two of the Assumption, two St. Michael’s, two of the Trinity, as
well as the churches of the Ascension, St. Nicholas, Raising of the Cross,
the Divine; still others bore the names of the Archangel Michael, Joseph
Obruchnyk, martyrs Oleksandra, Paraskeva, great martyr George, and St.
Basil, bishop of Pharos.

Much to our regret, Ukraine’s history has repeatedly seen
the destruction of church architecture: as long ago as in 1169, Volodymyr
Monomakh’s grandson Andrei Bogoliubsky (the Lover of God) seized Kyiv,
robbing and destroying historic church property; in 1240 Khan Batu literally
reduced many churches to ashes; church culture also suffered during the
Ruin of the late seventeenth century, when Orthodox churches were destroyed
under Polish oppression; during the Haidamak (poor peasants —Ed.)
uprising in 1768 the insurgents ruined hundreds of Greek Catholic churches.
Finally, churches suffered a true havoc in the period of Soviet power.

When the Soviet Union was formed in 1922, Soviet power,
which fought against any religion, was forced to preserve the Russian Orthodox
Church because the latter supported the making of a new Soviet state. Yet
in 1930, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was destroyed, for
the idea of church independence was based on the idea of an independent
Ukrainian state.

From the very beginning, under resolution No. 10. of the
higher school department at the People’s Commissariat of Education, signed
by the department chief Nazarov and secretary Fridman, the new authorities
withdrew throughout Ukraine such religious symbols as icons, censers, images
of saints, etc., from higher and secondary schools, and transfered them
often incompletely to the nearest churches and temples, soon to be ruined
and sacked. Historical and religious research institutions were renamed
as higher schools, thus falling under the jurisdiction of this resolution.

The implementation of the decree on the separation of church
from state by Soviet authorities upset the organic development of Ukrainian
rural areas. Religious structures began to undergo barbaric destruction.
We can see this from the example of the Lysianka district, a small part
of Kyiv oblast (now in Cherkasy oblast). Historical studies testify that
a church in Lysianka district was struck off the list in 1935 and used
as a warehouse in the village of Smilchyntsi. In 1939, in the village of
Khyzhyntsi, the same district, a village club was set up in the place of
a church. The Pochapyntsi Church of the Trinity was closed in February
1936. We find in the transfer report that, when being reorganized into
a club, the church had its copper and copper-silver alloy bells removed,
the iconostasis broken, and numerous icons destroyed. The crypts with the
tombs of the noble Chetverykov and Presnukhin families in the church basement
were plundered, and the remains were thrown away. The trees surrounding
the church (age-old lime trees, maples, aspens, and firs) were felled both
by order of the local authorities and by will of ordinary individuals residing
in the village of Pochapyntsi. Such measures were massive throughout Ukraine.

In general, over the fifty years from 1919 through 1969,
the authorities of what is now Cherkasy oblast closed about 700 Orthodox
and five Old Believer temples, ten Catholic cathedrals, and about six synagogues,
many of which were destroyed mercilessly. The destruction of architecturally
valuable temples went hand in hand with reprisals. Stubborn attempts were
made to use the church as an instrument of geopolitical change, which resulted
in its decline and fall.

In the Lysianka area, churches were closed and converted
into warehouses in the villages of Yablunivka and Zhurzhyntsi. A hoary
Polish Catholic cathedral was ruined in Lysianka in the 1930s. Churches
were turned into warehouses in the villages of Chaplynka, Vereshchaky,
and Repky, in 1960, 1961 and 1959, respectively. St. Michael’s Church in
Lysianka was closed in 1961 and was then gradually being destroyed on the
initiative of the local authorities until it ceased to exist in the late
seventies.

What we seem to have forgotten is that these structures
were of great architectural, artistic, historical, and cultural value,
being gems of civil construction and historical memory. They played a significant
role in the making of our national culture and were associated with our
most important historic events.

After the proclamation of Ukrainian independence in 1991,
the situation has changed somewhat. We have seen gradual normalization
of the state-church relationship, the creation of conditions for the normal
functioning of religious organizations, the beginning of a burgeoning process
of religious renaissance and restoration of architecturally valuable cult
structures.

In particular, on the territory of this same Lysianka district,
under the Ukrainian SSR law On the Freedom of Faith and Religious Organizations
of April 23, 1991, Cabinet of Minister resolution On the Transfer of Cult
Structures to Religious Organizations of April 5, 1991, and presidential
decree On Measures to Return Cult Property to Religious Organizations of
March 4, 1992, as well as by decision of the Pochapyntsi village council,
the Holy Trinity Church in the village of Pochapyntsi was handed over to
the Holy Trinity congregation of the Kyiv eparchy in December 1993. And
in the fall of 1995 the renovated and revived Pochapyntsi church opened
the doors to parishioners. Also functioning now are churches in the villages
of Vereshchaky and Zhurzhyntsi, and the majestic domes of the restored
Orthodox St. Michael’s church have soared aloft over the old Ukrainian
town of Lysianka.

№46 December 14 1999 «The
Day»


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