Re: A point in the right direction.
marika
"Buddy" <brother.bud...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:16e8f024-b1ee-4f6a...@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> What happened to this place? Any there any good feds anymore?
> Something approaching IIWF/SCRA?
most bureacrats aren't corrupt, they're mostly unable to act outside of the
framework of whatever little piece of law they enforce
Hard times for Ukraine's wooden churches
By Alex Rodriguez
Chicago Tribune
LVIV, Ukraine - The rustic beauty of Ukraine's famed wooden churches is
surpassed only by their capacity for survival.
> Dotting the countryside from the Carpathian Mountains to Crimea, they
have withstood centuries of unforgiving winters. During World War II,
Nazi shelling raked the Ukrainian heartland. Under Soviet rule, they
became grain silos and warehouses for items ranging from mattresses to
pesticides.
> Now, while democracy and religion thrive in Ukraine, wooden churches
as old as six centuries face ruin at the hands of the unlikeliest of
enemies: the priests and parishioners who became their guardians and,
unaware of their historical significance, began "improving" them.
> In Sytykhiv, a hamlet hidden away in western Ukraine's dense
woodland, preservationist Andriy Salyuk is shaken by what he sees.
Sheathed in blue and white plastic siding is the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, a wooden Ukrainian Greek Catholic church built in 1878.
> "I'm speechless," Salyuk said, shaking his head as he scans the
siding, the brown bathroom tile covering the church's front steps, the
sheet metal encasing its cupolas. "I feel so sorry for the way that this
church is being ruined. The kids who are playing in this village today
won't see this church in 20 years, because by then the wood underneath
will have rotted out."
> Oblivious to their churches' architectural and cultural significance,
priests and parishioners in other villages have cocooned the structures
in metal plating or, in some cases, burned them down to build brick or
stone replacements.
> For Salyuk, president of the nonprofit Lviv Foundation for the
Preservation of Architectural and Historical Monuments, it's tantamount
to blasphemy. Wooden churches are icons of Ukrainian architecture, he
and other preservationists say, as synonymous with the country's
cultural heritage as painted Easter eggs and borscht.
> Though the churches are legally protected because they are listed on
Ukraine's Register of National Monuments of Architecture, federal and
regional authorities rarely enforce the law, preservationists say.
Salyuk and his colleagues have taken it upon themselves to convince
priests and villagers of the cultural value of their churches, but it
hasn't been easy.
> Since Ukraine won its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, 68
wooden churches in the Lviv region have been gutted or razed, said the
Rev. Sebastian Dmytrukh, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest in Lviv who
heads his archdiocese's preservation commission.
> During the decades of Soviet atheism, only two of the region's wooden
churches were destroyed, Dmytrukh said.
> Stunning examples of Orthodox and Catholic wooden church architecture
abound in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
Usually hewn from oak, larch or spruce, the structures often are built
with terraced, pagodalike roofs topped by onion-domed cupolas.
> For centuries, the churches were threatened only by bark beetles and
termites. During World War II, some were destroyed during German
artillery barrages or set ablaze. When the Soviet Union annexed western
Ukraine after the war, most churches became warehouses or clubhouses
that locals used as movie theaters or dance halls.
> That nearly half-century of Soviet atheism largely explains the
indifference that many priests and parishioners harbor toward their
churches today, Salyuk says. The use of wooden churches as everyday
buildings devalued the structures' meaning for many Ukrainians.
> "People stopped feeling that all of these churches have value - not
material value, but spiritual or emotional value," Salyuk said.
> Regional authorities responsible for enforcing Ukraine's preservation
laws lack the staff and money to protect the churches. Vasil Ivanovsky,
head of the Lviv regional agency that investigates cases of damage or
destruction of architectural landmarks, says he would need 60 inspectors
to do the job properly. He has six.
> One of those inspectors may want to put Sytykhiv's village church on
the list. Salyuk said its plastic siding locks in moisture, accelerating
decay of the wood underneath. Oak beams supporting the structure are
damp and mossy.
> Salyuk wondered: "The kids in this village who are being raised on
this bad example - will they build a church like this when they grow up?"
>
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/17586979.html