More details about fire destruction of the largest wooden church in West Ukraine reported

According to RISU, on the night of Monday, May 11, in the Carpathian region a church was burnt down, which was located in the village of Novytsia, Kalush district.

The fire destroyed the church building on a total area of ​​250 sq.m.

1 auxiliary church building, 1 bell tower and 5 nearby residential buildings were saved from the fire.

The causes of the fire are being investigated.

Galina Kohut, a Kalush journalist, published on Facebook the details of the fire, "Galka" reports:

“Today the church of the UOC-KP was burnt down in Novytsia. The inhabitant of the village - Lesya Stepanivna Moysin was the first to see the fire through the window at 1.45 AM. By that time it was localized in the sacristan room. Immediately, along with the family and neighbors, they called the acquaintances, called the rescuers. According to Lesya Moisin, the firemen could not be reached for a long time. The rescuers got the message about the fire in 2 hours 6 minutes. In 16 minutes the first fire truck arrived. The fire quickly devoured the temple. When the firefighters arrived, the whole building of the church was burning. Just in an hour the largest wooden church in Western Ukraine was totally burnt down. People who came from everywhere, wore buckets of water, helped the firefighters to bring water next to the houses. The firefighters managed to save the bell tower, the rotunda, the neighboring houses and the church hut. The colleagues from Voinilov, Rozhnyatov, Carpathian Naftokhim helped the Kalush firefighters. The headquarters are still working at the fire scene, operational teams find out the situation. People are discussing different versions: from negligence to deliberate arson. The temple that was burned was unique in its size. It was the largest wooden church of Western Ukraine. And in general in Ukraine it was only second to the Trinity Cathedral of Novomoskovsk. The church was built under the direction of the then village rector, Fr Petr-Bogdan Solovyi (1894-1963) and was consecrated on August 19, 1938. By that time, it was not so easy to created such great constructions because everything was done by hands, there was no technologies which we have now. This year, in August, the temple was to celebrate its 80th anniversary.”