The authorities of the eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia pulled down the Orthodox cross on the island of Khortytsia to install in its place the highest flagpole in Ukraine.
According to the Zaporizhia Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, the Orthodox cross, which was erected on a hill near the Museum of History of Zaporozhian Cossacks on the Feast of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin on October 14, 1992, was pulled down on August 5, provoking a negative reaction from the head of Zaporizhia Eparchy, Bishop Luka.
“Today, we saw how this Holy Cross was, to put it mildly, taken down: without a blessing from the ruling bishop or even a priest, the cross was mercilessly thrown down the hill,” stated Bishop Luka.
At the same time, news about the removal of the Orthodox cross was confirmed by the Zaporizhia Regional State Administration, which initiated installing the flagpole on the island of Khortytsia.
“In view of the construction needed to install Ukraine’s highest flagpole, the wooden cross was taken down from the top of the hill near the Museum of Zaporozhian Cossacks in Khortytsia,” reported the Regional State Administration.
In addition, deputy head of the Zaporizhia Region, Mykola Yarmoshchuk, assured that “its is not about an irreversible removal of the cross.”
According to Bishop Luka, he received a call from First Deputy Head of the Zaporizhia Oblast Oleksii Lytvyn who said that the removed cross will be replaced by a new granite three-meter cross.
However, when we examined the reconstruction project, we did not see a Holy Cross there,” said the bishop.