St Anthony Parish (Barashi)

The first documentary reference to Barashi dates to 1586, but the settlement is much older, as shown by the remains of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Zamchyshche fortified site discovered in its centre. From 1577, it was regarded as a small town for a time. It had about seven hundred residents in 1880, 2,200 in 1890, 2,609 in 1906 and 3,353 in 1923; today, it has more than two thousand. Barashi was a district centre from 1923 to 1963, then became part of Yemilchyne District and, in 2020, Novohrad-Volynskyi District, subsequently renamed Zviahel District.

The former wooden Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Barashi, built in 1795, was destroyed by the Soviet authorities in 1935. The faithful therefore had to find another building suitable for a chapel.

In January 2008, the local authorities transferred a sewing workshop to the Diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr for the Roman Catholics of Barashi. They converted it into St Anthony of Padua Chapel. The local religious community’s statutes were registered on 19 April 2011. It is served by diocesan priests from Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Rykhalske.