St Alexander’s Cathedral (Kyiv)

Before 1917, the parish grounds occupied a third of Kostolna Street and part of Triokhsviatytelska Street. In 1894, St Alexander’s Parish had 33,771 parishioners.

Until the completion of St Nicholas’s Church in 1909, St Alexander’s Cathedral was Kyiv’s only large Catholic church, serving virtually all the city’s Roman Catholics. After 1917, the church’s landholdings gradually diminished, but the parish continued to exist until 1937.

Most of the priests who served in the church during that period met tragic fates. Many were persecuted and died in concentration camps. The last parish priest, Fr Sigizmund Kvasnevskyi, was arrested on 3 June 1937 and executed on 21 September that year.

In 1937, St Alexander’s Roman Catholic Church ceased to be used for worship. The building was converted into various administrative premises. Its interior was divided into four storeys with masonry vaults. At different times, it housed dormitories for workers of Kyivhazbud and the Municipal Trade Department, storage facilities of the Historical Library, and a museum of atheism.

In 1952, the building was transferred to the observatory of Kyiv University for use as a planetarium.

In 1982, when the new planetarium on Chervonoarmiiska Street, now Velyka Vasylkivska Street, was completed, the institution left the church building. On 15 September 1990, Mass was celebrated on the church steps for the first time in many years.

In 1991, the building was returned to the Roman Catholic Church.

The church’s restoration took four years.

On 7 October 1995, Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk, Auxiliary Bishop of Zhytomyr, rededicated St Alexander’s Church. It had been restored through the efforts of the faithful, led by the then parish priest, Fr Jan Krapan, with support from Catholics in Ukraine and many other countries.

On 25 June 2001, Blessed John Paul II visited the church during his visit to Ukraine.

Hanna Putova