A vibrant church in Ukraine, damaged by war, stands up as a symbol of the country’s faith and culture

LYPIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to the war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also offered physical refuge from the horrors beyond.

Nearly a hundred residents took shelter in a chapel in the basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary when Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they approached the Ukrainian capital Kiev, 60 kilometers to the east.

“The fighting took place here,” said Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi. He pointed to the cemetery, where a memorial stone commemorates the six Ukrainian soldiers who died in the battle for Lypivka.

“They got hurt and then the Russians came and shot them all,” he said.

The two-week Russian occupation destroyed the village and damaged the church itself – a modern replacement for an older building – while it was still under construction. It is one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites registered by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization.

“It’s solid concrete,” the priest said. “But it was easily pierced” by Russian shells, which punched holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel. At the bottom of the cellar stairs there is a black scorch mark where a grenade was thrown.

But within weeks, workers began repairing the damage and working to complete the enormous red-domed building that towers over the village, with its battered and damaged buildings, blossoming fruit trees and fields that the Russians had left littered with landmines.

For many involved – including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftsmen – the reconstruction of this church plays a role in the Ukrainian struggle for culture, identity and its survival. The building is a striking combination of ancient and modern, reflecting a country determined to express its soul even in times of war.

The building’s austere exterior masks a blaze of color within. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels that decorate the walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist depictions of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine.

Kryvolap, 77, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said he wanted to avoid the stern-looking icons he had seen in many Orthodox churches.

“It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration,” he said.

There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during the Second World War. The small wooden church that replaced it was used for more mundane purposes in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed.

Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and began rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with financing from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor.

The work stopped when Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Moscow’s forces reached the outskirts of Kiev before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated in early April.

Since then, fighting has been concentrated in eastern and southern Ukraine, although airstrikes with missiles, rockets and drones are a constant threat across the country.

By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It’s been slow. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war broke out, including builders and craftsmen. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military.

Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold statue of Christ raises its hand in blessing

For now, services are taking place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently led a service for several dozen parishioners as the scent of incense wafted through the candlelit room.

He expects a big crowd at Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians typically celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches because they use a different method for calculating the date for the holy day that marks the resurrection of Christ.

A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, although the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka Church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until it split from Russia after the 2022 invasion, and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.

Kharkivskyi says the size of his community has remained stable, even as the village’s population has shrunk dramatically since the start of the war. In difficult times, he says, people turn to religion.

“As people say, ‘Air raids – go to God,’” the priest said wryly.

Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, felt drawn back to the village and church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then aged 16 and 18. But within weeks she came back to the village she loved, which was still under siege by the Russians.

The family hunkered down in their house, cooking on firewood and drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed.

“Don’t pray in strict order, like in the book,” she said. “It came from my heart, from my soul: what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?”

She regularly attends Lypivka Church and says it is a “place where you can take refuge mentally, within yourself.”

As Ukraine celebrates its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few Kryvolap interior panels remain to be installed. He said the shell holes will not be repaired as a reminder of future generations.

“(It is) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists,” he said, referring to the Russians.

“We are Orthodox just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane.”

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Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this story.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine