Kyiv, a classic and beautiful history-filled European city is also the spiritual heart of Ukraine. Russia knows that and is wiping out the country’s great cathedrals that, until now, have stood as a Christian witness. Putin’s war isn’t just about land, or NATO – it’s turning into a war on Christianity.
Among the sites destroyed or at risk in the Ukrainian capital are the nation’s most sacred Orthodox shrines and churches, dating back 1,000 years to the dawn of Christianity in the region. While Russian missiles have mostly avoided them in the capital, the missiles and artillery bombardment are finding their targets across the country.
VIDEO: Watch the evidence of the destruction below
The sites, many of which are on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, along with other landmark shrines in Kyiv, are religiously significant to both Ukrainian Orthodox and Russian Orthodox. But they are also treasured by protestant believers. They stand as powerful symbols in the quarrel over whether the two groups are parts of a single people — as Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed — or are distinct but related Slavic nations.
The landmarks include the golden-domed St. Sophia’s Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a sprawling underground and above-ground complex also known as the Monastery of the Caves. Others include the multi-towered St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery and St. Andrew’s Church.
This week, people began calling Putin’s actions in Ukraine a “cultural genocide” if not a literal one so far. Russia, it seems, may be bent on wiping out any trace of a unique Ukrainian civilization.
Case in point: The Assumption Cathedral in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was damaged in the recent attacks, reportedly with priceless stained-glass windows shattered and other decorations damaged. The cathedral, which is under the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox church, was Kharkiv’s tallest building until sometime in the 21st century.
The risk is even greater in Kyiv.
“We’re talking about a very old city,” said Jacob Lassin, a postdoctoral research scholar at the Arizona State University’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. “The center part is densely packed. Even if you’re trying to hit one thing, you could easily hit something else.”
The symbolic value of the shrines is powerful even to people who don’t share the religious faith they commemorate.
“The idea that the main symbol that stood in your city for 1,000 years could be at risk or could be destroyed is very frightening,” Lassin said.
Ukraine’s churches currently being destroyed are a “total refutation” of another of Putin’s claims — to be defending Orthodox Ukrainians loyal to Moscow’s patriarch.
“It would literally be destroying the main seat of Russian Orthodoxy according to his own rhetoric,” Lassin said.
The shrines’ oldest parts date back to the medieval Kievan Rus kingdom, soon after its adoption of Christianity under Prince Vladimir in the 10th century. Putin has claimed the kingdom is the common ancestor of today’s Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainians counter that theirs is a distinct nation now under fratricidal attack from its Slavic neighbor.
The cathedral and nearby monastic complex represent “a masterpiece of human creative genius in both its architectural conception and its remarkable decoration,” says a summary by UNESCO, which lists them as World Heritage Sites.
The cathedral, built under Prince Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century, was modeled after the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the spiritual and architectural heart of medieval Orthodoxy. The Kyiv cathedral includes mosaics and frescoes as old as 1,000 years, and it was a model for later churches in the region, according to UNESCO.
“The huge pantheon of Christian saints depicted in the cathedral has an unrivaled multiplicity among Byzantine monuments of that time,” UNESCO says.
The Monastery of the Caves, including underground monastic cells, tombs of saints and above-ground churches built across nearly nine centuries, was hugely influential in spreading Orthodox Christianity, according to UNESCO.
Both complexes were endangered and at times damaged by centuries of warfare.
St. Sophia’s, sacred both to Ukraine’s two main rival Orthodox churches and to Catholics, is currently a museum and isn’t normally used for religious services.
Two of the landmarks are associated with opposing sides in the schism within Ukrainian Orthodoxy.
Below are the churches currently destroyed or severely damaged by Russian bombardment
“You will never be able to destroy our profound faith in Ukraine and God,” said Ukrainian President V. Zelensky.
“Even if you destroy all our Ukrainian churches and cathedrals, you will never be able to destroy our profound faith in Ukraine and God,” said Ukrainian President V. Zelensky in his speech of March 3.
1 KHARKIV – CATHEDRAL OF THE DORMITION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (AND OTHER CHURCHES)The Ukrainian President referred directly to the destruction of the historic Kharkiv Cathedral, completed in 1770. A missile hit the church, a haven for refugees, on the evening of March 2. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the explosion.
The cathedral, which belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, had been destroyed earlier, too. In 1930, the communists desecrated and devastated the cathedral and took control of it. The building was restored to religious use only in 2009.
У Харкові російський снаряд влучив в Свято-Успенський собор. У святині саме укривалися від ворога люди. На щастя, постраждалих немає.
In Kharkiv, a Russian shell hit the Holy Dormition Cathedral. In the shrine, people hid from the enemy. Fortunately, no one was injured pic.twitter.com/mpqvYuv7Z2
— Громадське радіо (@HromadskeRadio) March 2, 2022
Two other churches were damaged in the city, besieged and shelled since the very first day of the war. These were St. Anthony’s Church and the Church of Women Carrying Fragrances (in this order in the photos).
2 VIAZOVKA (ZHYTOMYR REGION) – CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
Another historical building (from 1862) destroyed (March 7) by Russian artillery fire. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has announced that only the church belfry has been left unscathed by the shelling.
https://twitter.com/ua_industrial/status/1500772653321367554
3 ZAVORICHI (KIYV REGION) – CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE
The information about the destruction of the church in Viazovka was coupled with that of the burning down of another historical church of great value. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has announced that the Church of St. George (from 1873), near Kiyv was burnt down on March 7. According to the local pastor, Fr. Petro Kotyuk, the Russian occupiers deliberately shelled the church building and furthermore opened fire on the civilians hiding nearby.
4 CHERNIHIV – CHURCH OF THE KAZAN ICON OF THE MOTHER OF GOD
Another church of the Moscow Patriarchate, completed in 1827, was shelled in the night of March 7. While fortunately the degree of damage is not serious, the adjacent presbytery building was burnt to the ground.
That very night, the Russians also shelled the Yelets Assumption Monastery in Czernihiv.
5 BOBRIK (KIYV REGION) – CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD
It was shelled on March 5. The missile hit it a half hour after a religious service. “Thank God no one was injured. By this time, parishioners and children were drinking tea in a nearby building. The children got scared, fell onto the floor and started to cry,” said the local priest, Fr. Jan Shevchenko(Moscow Patriarchate).
Church in the village of Bobryk, #Kyiv region after a "special military operation" pic.twitter.com/jdHRrfm5bE
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 6, 2022
6 HULIAIPOLE (ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION) – CHURCH OF ST. TIKHON ZADONSKY
Destroyed only a couple of days ago (March 8) along with other premises of the parish (of the Moscow Patriarchate) and nearby homes. Fortunately, the residents had managed to flee and take cover.
В Гуляйполі російські окупанти зруйнували православний храм, – ВІДЕОhttps://t.co/gZa0ugACl5
Вночі в Гуляйполі тривали бої. Ворог застосовував артилерійські удари та нальоти авіації. В результаті зруйновані житлові будинки та храм. Покажіть це всім! pic.twitter.com/XHvST6Gaf6— Запоріжжя 061.ua (@zaporozhye061ua) March 6, 2022
7 SUMY – BL. METROPOLITAN VLADIMIR’S SEMINARY
Bombed by Russian planes in the night of March 8. Fortunately, there were no casualties of the air raid. Sumy has been shelled and bombarded continuously since day one Putin’s invasion.
8MALIN (ZHYTOMYR REGION) – CHURCH OF THE HOLY FACE (THE VEIL OF VERONICA)
The shelling of the town has been going on continuously for several days. Yesterday evening (March 8), five other residents lost their lives. One of the local churches of the Moscow Patriarchate had been destroyed before. Some media outlets informed mistakenly that it was the Church of St. Michael.
https://twitter.com/TourOfTheFuture/status/1501304241201160193
Małyń (okolice Żytomierza) pic.twitter.com/g8y520CWw3
— Robert Wiktor Fidura-Porycki (@WPorycki) March 7, 2022
9 SCHASTIE (LUHANSK REGION) – ST. CATHERINE’S CHURCH
Completed in 1914, it had been constructed intermittently for a number of decades by the local residents,frustrated by the River Donets regularly overflowing its banks, preventing them from participating in religious services in the church in Staryi Aidar. Damaged by artillery fire on March 7. In the post below – in the last photo.
https://twitter.com/Ukraine_SID/status/1501081781453438980
10 IRPEN (KYIV REGION) – CHAPEL NEXT TO THE CHURCH OF GREAT MARTYR ST. GREGORY THE VICTORIOUS
Irpen near Kiyv is one of the places with the most serious humanitarian situation. The city has been completely cut off from electricity, heating, water, medicines and food supplies. The fierce fighting that has been going on around it for several days has led to the deaths of at least a dozen civilians. The Russians went so far as to shoot at an evacuation convoy assembling at the church. The vicarage and the church chapel are among the village buildings destroyed in the warfare. Luckily, the shells missed the main building, where dozens of people, including children and people with disabilities, had taken shelter.
If Ukraine’s landmarks are destroyed, “could it potentially damage morale? Yes,” Lassin said. “Could it potentially galvanize people to be more united? Absolutely. … What I can say is the Ukrainian people are extremely resilient and are fighting back through all of this.”
Regardless if it does either of those things, it will be a great loss for the physical evidence of Christianity in that land that goes back over 1,000 years.
–Wire services, Peter Smith, and Aleteia