Saint Elijah Church

The interesting history of Cyril Saint Elijah Church.

The Radomyshl church council began to build Saint Elijah Church in 1749. The parish school and clergy houses were set up near it. In 1873, the wooden church burned down, and in its place a stone one was erected, for which all parishioners were levied a special tax: for the construction, they were obliged to supply eggs and fresh morning cow’s milk, which was added to a lime solution. Thanks to this, the walls of the church were extremely durable.

In 1930, services in Saint Elijah were stopped, and the bells were removed from the belfry and broken. Services resumed in 1942 and continue to this day. According to a long-standing custom, clergymen from other parishes are invited to Chernobyl for the feast of Prophet Elijah. In the church, there is a unique icon of Saint Nicholas. It was painted in the 17th century and is considered miraculous. After the evacuation of Chernobyl, there were several robbery attempts. The looters wanted to pull out the door with a cable, but it burst and mutilated the faces of the robbers. They say that Saint Nicholas protects the church. Services here were resumed with the return of parishioners from among samoseli and the Exclusion Zone workers.

This article was published in the book Interesting Chernobyl.
You could download this book in PDF file for free here.

© Sky Horse Publishing House (Kyiv) / Nahs Haus, 2019
Copying and publication of this article is possible only with the written permission of the publishing house.
Official website of the Awesome Heritage series: awesomeheritage.com

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