St Nicholas Parish (Kyiv)

St Nicholas’s Church was dedicated and solemnly opened on 6 December 1909. A house for the priests serving there was built beside it. The church functioned as a place of worship until approximately 1936. It was closed in 1938, with the priests accused of anti-Soviet activities.

From that time, the church building was taken from its rightful owners, the faithful. It was brutally looted, and clergy and parishioners were persecuted. Until 1941, various organisations used it as a warehouse. In 1943, during the war, artillery fire damaged the building and caused a fire.

After the war, the building was placed at the disposal of the Kyiv State Regional Archive. Its towers housed a station that jammed broadcasts from the BBC, Radio Liberty and other stations. On 13.02.1979, a decision of the USSR Council of Ministers designated the building the Republican House of Organ Music. In the late 1980s, the faithful repeatedly demanded the return of their church and the restoration of its sacred purpose. From 3 September 1991, they gathered outside it regularly every Sunday.

On 4 January 1992, after more than fifty years, the faithful were once again able to enter their church. Its reopening was solemnly celebrated, and Jan Purwiński, Bishop of Kyiv-Zhytomyr, rededicated it. Since then, the church and parish have been entrusted to the spiritual care of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

On 25 June 2001, Pope St John Paul II visited St Nicholas’s Church during his apostolic visit to Ukraine.

Unfortunately, the Ukrainian state has still not returned St Nicholas’s Church to the faithful.