Kyiv bishop blesses restored church (06/28/98)

Kyiv bishop blesses restored church

Agency of Religious Information

KYIV - The restored Church of St. Nicholas at the grave of Prince Askold was blessed by Bishop Vasyl Medvit, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic exarch of Kyiv and Vyshhorod, in Kyiv on the Day of St. Nicholas the Miraclemaker (May 22).

Bishop Lubomyr Husar, assistant bishop to Major Archbishop Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky and administrator of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and Archbishop Antonio Franco, apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, participated in a solemn divine liturgy in honor of St. Nicholas.

Oleksander Omelchenko, head of the Kyiv Municipal Administration, also attended the solemn opening ceremony. Princess Olha built one of the first churches in Kyiv in honor of murdered Prince Askold (Nicholas) in the ninth century. The church was destroyed by Princess Olha's son Prince Sviatoslav the Brave and later was restored by her grandson Volodymyr the Great.

The Monastery of St. Nicholas was founded there in the 11th century. Archival photographs show a wooden church with three domes that was reconstructed into a stone church by merchant Mescheriakov in 1809. In 1934, the church was transformed by Communist authorities into a park rotunda.

It was handed over to Ukrainian Greek-Catholics on April 26, 1992. The Church of St. Nicholas is one of the four churches whose restoration is being financed by the municipal budget. "We owe this to our descendants to take responsibility for the sins of the generations that destroyed churches and the spirituality of the Ukrainian nation," Mr. Omelchenko said.

"The restoration of the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God on the territory of the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra (the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves) is to start in June, which will be a present to the city for Christmas 2000," he added.

The Church of St. Nicholas was restored by the organization Ukrrestavratsiya.