(OSV News): Russia’s extensive November 25 drone attack on Kyiv damaged the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ. Close to 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones were launched at Ukraine’s capital, as Ukrainians marked Holodomor Remembrance Day, which commemorates the seven to 10 million victims of an man-made famine inflicted by Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, from 1932 to 1933.
One Shahed drone was shot down in the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv, beside the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ and the residence of Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church [UGCC].
The debris impacted doors and shattered windows within the cathedral. A nearby multistory building sustained even greater destruction, according to the Church’s information department.
It was Russia’s largest drone attack on Kyiv since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. No fatalities were reported, but five people were injured. Ukraine’s forces said 74 of the drones were successfully eliminated. Kyiv remained under an air raid alert lasting more than six hours.
The UGCC reported that “six windows in the basement of the Patriarchal Cathedral were damaged,” as “the blast wave shattered the glass panes.
One Shahed drone was shot down in the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv, beside the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ and the residence of Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk
“The hardware on four cathedral doors was damaged, and door locks were torn off,” said Vasyl Bukatyuk, director of the Construction Directorate at the UGCC Patriarchate. He added that Archbishop Shevchuk’s residence also suffered damage.
“The hardware on three doors was affected at both the patriarchal residence and the patriarchal curia,” he said.
Slight damage to the cathedral facade also was documented, and fragments of varying sizes from the drone were gathered on its grounds.
Clergymen into the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kiev, Ukraine, June 5, 2017. The cathedral and its curia buildings sustained damage during a massive Nov. 25, 2023, drone attack by Russian forces on Kyiv. (OSV News photo/Valentyn Ogirenko, Reuters)
People visit a monument to Holodomor victims in Kyiv, Ukraine, Nov. 25, 2023, during a ceremony commemorating the famine of 1932-33, in which millions died of hunger. The ceremony took place the same day Russia launched its most intense drone attack on Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on the country in 2022. (OSV News photo/Sofiia Gatilova, Reuters)“In return for gifts from St. Nicholas, we’ll be receiving unique souvenirs,” Archbishop Shevchuk remarked.
According to the Ukrainian Institute for Religious Freedom, some 500 religious sites in Ukraine have been “wholly destroyed, damaged, or looted by the Russian military” between the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and January 2023. That number has only increased since then, according to Religion on Fire, a nongovernmental project headed by several Ukrainian religious scholars.
The genocide of Ukrainians was not an accidental deviation from Moscow’s historical tradition—on the contrary, it was the bloodiest embodiment of a centuries-old ideology of Russian imperialism, which eternally burns with hatred for Ukraine, despises neighbouring nations and greedily encroaches on the world’s space
Ukrainian Church leaders joined anniversary commemorations of the Holodomor. “Ninety years ago, Ukrainians were killed in cold blood under the direct order and elaborate plan of (Josef) Stalin’s totalitarian communist regime, which aimed to destroy our people and their identity, forever ending their hopes of freedom,” said the country’s Greek Catholic bishops.
“The genocide of Ukrainians was not an accidental deviation from Moscow’s historical tradition—on the contrary, it was the bloodiest embodiment of a centuries-old ideology of Russian imperialism, which eternally burns with hatred for Ukraine, despises neighbouring nations and greedily encroaches on the world’s space.”
The declaration said “killing by starvation” had been chosen as a “weapon of mass destruction” to ensure long-term domination, while erasing Ukraine’s “language, culture and memory” and “sinking its people and land into the abyss.”
Ukraine’s Roman Catholic bishops on November 19 described the Holodomor as the Ukrainian people’s “great historical tragedy.”
They added, “May this National Day of Remembrance serve all of us in uniting against all forms of visible and invisible evil. Let us pray for those who today suffer from hunger—our defenders on the front line, internally displaced persons affected by the war, and those enduring years within it,” the Roman Catholic bishops wrote.
