The complex, inaugurated in 2004, is a branch of the important Dormition Monastery in Svyatohirsk, where, according to Ukrainian authorities, almost 300 civilians have taken refuge.
The building was considered one of the most enchanting in the region. The All Saints’ Hermitage Museum in Svyatohirsk was damaged during ongoing fighting in Donbass, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture announced on Saturday. Pictures posted to social media on Saturday afternoon showed the wooden building’s roof being consumed by a major fire.
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According to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the place was hit by an incendiary weapon. “The main building was completely vandalized,” the church said in a statement, noting it doesn’t yet know if there are any casualties. In 2019, about ten monks lived in this hermitage. The complex is about 500 meters south of the Lavra, a large monastery, of Sviatohirsk, one of the country’s most important Orthodox sites on which it depends. A week before the attack on the complex, on May 28, the Moscow branch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, on which the monastery depends, announced that they were breaking with Russia over the offensive launched by Vladimir Putin with the fervent support of the Russians become Patriarch Kirill.
Heart of Donbass, heart of struggles
The Assumption Monastery would serve as a sanctuary for nearly 300 refugees, including about 60 children, Ukraine’s Culture and Information Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said, according to the Interfax news agency. Russians “continue to claim their inability to be part of the civilized world,” the minister commented on Facebook on Saturday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also condemned the attack on the religious site. “The occupiers know exactly which facility they are bombing. You know that there are no military targets on the territory of Svyatohirsk Lavra,” he said on Facebook late Saturday afternoon, renewing his call for Russia’s exclusion from Unesco.
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This hermitage was built of wood in the early 2000s in the style of sacred orthodox architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries and was built on the site of an old stone church that was closed during the Soviet era and then destroyed. Like the important monastery nearby, this complex is close to the Seversky Donets River, which – particularly around Sieverodonetsk – poses a significant operational obstacle to Russian forces.
Sviatohirsk Lavra had already been partially damaged by some shells in the first months of the conflict. The city of Svyatohirsk, located between Izyum and Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast, has been hotly contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces since the Donbass offensive began in April. This week, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine announced on Wednesday the deaths of three people, two monks and a nun, killed in a bombing raid on the monastery. Three clergymen were also injured on Monday.