Russian occupiers have destroyed a library and valuable artefacts of Ukraine’s past, and also damaged the decoration of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s cathedral church dedicated to Saint Peter (Mohyla) in Mariupol. The church was entirely painted with Petrykivka ornamentation and had unique cultural significance.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine reported this on Facebook.
In 2020, the church was entered into the Ukraine Book of Records as the only church in the world whose exterior decoration is entirely executed in the Petrykivka painting technique. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, it was not only a spiritual centre but also an educational and cultural hub of the Donetsk region.
The church hosted free bandura and painting schools, courses in Ukrainian embroidery, pysanka-making, icon painting and Ukrainian sacred singing. A public library named after Vasyl Stus was also established there, for which Ukrainian-language books were collected.
After the capture of Mariupol, Russian occupiers seized and burned the church’s library and valuable artefacts of Ukraine’s past. Among the destroyed books were rare Ukrainian-language editions, including those that existed in single copies.
The church itself was looted, damaged and seized. In 2024, a commission of the Russian Orthodox Church stated that the building’s unique decoration in the Ukrainian traditional style did not meet its ecclesiastical requirements. It was then decided to bring the church’s appearance “into compliance with ROC canons”.
In addition, the occupiers changed the name of the religious community, registering it as the parish of the Church of Saint Spyridon of Trimythous of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On 5 November 2026, Mariupol’s occupation administration issued an order transferring the church building, with an area of 550 square metres, and the adjacent land plot, with an area of 1,411 square metres, for free use by this parish.
The OCU called such actions a manifestation of the appropriation of Ukraine’s cultural and religious heritage and pointed to the contradiction between Russia’s actions in the occupied territories and its claims of alleged infringements of religious rights in Ukraine.
“If the Russian Church ‘has’ to be represented in Ukraine, then how many Ukrainian churches are there in the Russian Federation itself? After all, there is a huge Ukrainian diaspora there. How many Ukrainian churches, how many of our priests, Ukrainian parishes operate in the temporarily occupied territories? Zero,” the Orthodox Church of Ukraine stressed.
- The Northern Commercial Court of Appeal, at a hearing on 12 November, dismissed the appeal by the Holy Dormition Monastery of the UOC regarding the removal of obstacles to its use of the Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church.
- The case concerns the monastery’s lawsuit against the National Preserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” over the legality of terminating the agreement for the use of religious buildings in the Upper Lavra.