In Kremenets, the church taken away from the UOC was turned into a restoration workshop

The St. Nicholas Cathedral with its complex of premises, which was taken away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the town of Kremenets, Ternopil region, is still not used for its intended purpose. The staff of the Kremenets-Pochayiv Historical and Architectural Reserve, together with restorers brought from Lviv, engaged in the “conservation” of icons and other restoration work, actually setting up their own workshop in the church. In the reserve complained that during the time when the temple was in the ownership of the UOC, many of the “objects of art” in it allegedly came to a bad state. This is reported in the material on the site “Suspilne.Ternopil”.

It is reported that specialists of the Lviv branch of the National Research Restoration Center of Ukraine are working in St. Nicholas Cathedral in two locations. One of them is on the first floor of the temple. Here they preserve the icon of the Communion of St. Onuphrius of the 18th century and the icon of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the 19th century, says restorer Roxolana Mokriy. The image of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept under a metal frame, she said.

“This is not now restoration, this is the so-called conservation on the basis of the museum, when we preserve these objects so that they are not destroyed in the future. And later, the second stage, if we continue cooperation, when we take those works to Lviv in our branch and conduct a full restoration, which can last several months, a year, two, it all depends on the complexity of the work,” — said the head of the Lviv branch of the National Research Restoration Center of Ukraine Taras Otkovych.

In turn, the director of the Kremenets-Pochayiv State Historical and Architectural Reserve Vasyl Ilchyshyn confirmed that no religious events are planned in St. Nicholas Cathedral in the near future. The official complained that it is still necessary to restore the iconostasis of the temple, which will take a lot of time.

“All the work here needs to be restored, the iconostasis itself, too. Because here, probably, since this temple, the hand of the restorer has not touched those icons, the iconostasis needs to be cleaned. If there will be time for this trip, the restorers will try to clean some icons of the iconostasis. Because they were covered with non-professional means of preservation, they yellowed. Therefore, this synthetic varnish, unknown, must be removed, covered with special means, in order for it to have a proper appearance and safety”, — said Ilchyshyn.

We will remind, earlier we reported that the Kremenets-Pochayiv State Historical and Architectural Reserve announced the organization of excursions in the complex of structures of St. Nicholas Cathedral of the city of Kremenets, Ternopil region, which earlier the state forcibly expropriated from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. According to the “reserve”, the excursions will be conducted not only inside the church, but also on the bell tower, which is also a historical monument.