The OVA showed what the shelled monastery of the Svyatogorsk Lavra looks like

As a result of the shelling of Svyatogorsk by Russian troops, the All Saints Skete of the Svyatogorsk Lavra burned down. This was told by the head of the Donetsk regional military administration Pavel Kirilenko. He added that this is not the first religious building destroyed by the Russians in the region.

He noted that the wooden All Saints Skete of the Svyatogorsk Lavra burned to the ground.

At the same time, he noted that this is not an isolated crime of Russians against Ukrainian cultural and spiritual heritage.

As Kirilenko notes, in Svyatogorsk alone, which unites three monuments of architecture and culture, the Russian occupation troops damaged the historical and architectural museum, destroyed the temple, two sketes, and also two buildings of cells of the Svyatogorsk Lavra. In doing so, they killed four monks.

In total, the Russians have already destroyed or damaged at least 43 religious buildings in the region - the vast majority of them belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate, - emphasizes the head of the OVA.

For the last three days, Svyatogorsk has been under heavy fire from the Russian occupiers and has been severely destroyed.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia, infidels have been regularly shelling the Svyatogorsk Lavra. The shelling was first reported on 12 March. Then the Russian invaders opened fire on the monastery, where there were women and children evacuated from Izyum.

The shelling was also reported on 30 May. Then the Russians fired at the Svyatogorsk Lavra itself, as a result of which two monks and a nun were killed. Three more monks were injured.

Already on June 4, it became known about a new attack. As a result of shelling, a large-scale fire started on the territory of the Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Lavra.

In turn, the President of Ukraine said that the Russian invaders deliberately attacked the Svyatogorsk Lavra, knowing that there were no military facilities there, but hundreds of laymen and clergy were hiding there from the fighting.

The buildings of the skete were assembled by local carpenters from massive pine logs and decorated with carvings in the traditions of ancient Russian wooden architecture of the 16th-17th centuries. Until 1931, there was a functioning stone church in honor of All Saints, consecrated in 1912. In 1931, the Soviet authorities closed the parish, expelled the priests from there and set up a granary for grain, which was taken from the Ukrainians. In 1947, the temple was blown up by the remnants of live shells, grenades and mines collected in the surrounding fields during demining after the Second World War.

In 2000, a place was cleared for the first skete buildings and preparations began for the construction of a church in honor of All Saints.