Number DOI: http://doi.org/10.33209/2519-4348-2019-7-55

VB. – № 7, 2019. – P.

Summary

The article attempts to explore the historical circumstances surrounding the restoration of the ancient Church of the Intercession – the spiritual center of numerous resident generations of the city of Bakhmut in the Donbass. In 1930 the Church of the Intercession – a local monument of the 18thcentury architecture – was destroyed in the course of anti-religious activity by local party officials, but in the wake of the liberalization of state-church relations in the late 1980s, the issue of its restoration was gradually actualized in the circles of the Bakhmut intelligentsia. Since this process was directly related to the figure of the bishop of Donetsk and Lugansk Polycarp (Guts), and the parish of the Church of the Intercession de facto became the first community of the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate in Donbass, this topic is of particular importance in the context of analyzing the historical experience of the Local UOC’s coming into being in the Donbass – a complex region of the Ukrainian-Russian border. For a long time, the history of the Bakhmut Pokrov community was not covered, and the figure of its spiritual leader, Bishop Polycarp (Guts), was unduly forgotten. The construction of the Church of the Intercession with the complex of administrative buildings of the Donetsk-Lugansk Diocese in Bakhmut would allow the city not only to restore the ancient architectural monument, but also to restore the status of the leading spiritual center of the region. However, historical analysis proves that the implementation of the restoration project of the Intercession Church was made impossible by many factors, among which numerous mistakes of the hierarch’s environment, passive opposition of the local authorities to the development of the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate in Donetsk region, difficult economic situation in Ukraine, and too premature death of the bishop, whichnullifiedall previous organizational measures and adversely affected the development of the restored Donetsk-Lugansk Diocese. Further study of this topic, in particular regarding the fundamental circumstances of the parish council activityand the abolition of the Intercession community, requires involvement of the materials of the State Archives of the Donetsk region, which is on currently occupied territory.

Key words: Orthodoxy, Bakhmut, Church of the Intercession, Bishop Polycarp (Guts), Donetsk-Luhansk Eparchy of the UOC Kyivan Patriarchate.

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