Churches cannot be saved from shelling: a temple was destroyed near Donetsk (PHOTO)
Donetsk, September 07 (PolitNavigator, Mikael Chagalyan) – Always, in times of war, unrest, enemy raids or natural disasters, people hid in churches. Even if a person cannot be called a strong believer, in times of terrible danger almost everyone, hoping for salvation, raises prayers to heaven with the words “Save and preserve.” But today in the village of Kirovskoye, which is 23 kilometers from Donetsk, a sign with this inscription sways in the wind walking through the building of the destroyed Church of St. John of Kronstadt.
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The faces of saints on the surviving walls are mute witnesses of those recent events.
That Saturday evening, August 23, a great doxology was sung in the church. At about 17.30, when the service was already coming to an end, a terrible roar was suddenly heard. It was a direct hit from an artillery shell, which pierced the roof and literally collapsed the entire temple building within a few seconds. Fragments of the building and shell fragments flew onto the heads of those praying.
Unfortunately, the tragedy could not be avoided: three parishioners - Zinaida Megula, Viktor Chernyshev and candle maker Olga Radchenko died on the spot. Archpriest Sergei Piven, his wife Lyudmila, as well as parishioners Tatyana, Nadezhda, Lyubov and another woman were hospitalized with injuries of varying severity, the diocese said.
The altar boy of the Church of St. John of Kronstadt, Victor, was also injured during the shelling; he has a moderate concussion. Those events were etched in his memory for a long time:
“I didn’t understand anything, I woke up on the floor, my eyes were dark. My first thought was to run, but when I saw the priest lying through a cloud of dust, heard cries for help, I realized that there were those who had suffered more than me. I tried to help my father. He was groaning, one of his arms was wounded. Not far away, under a mountain of collapsed plaster, fragments of the roof and walls, broken benches, women lay mixed together... Many elderly women were wounded, some in the arm, some with their legs broken. There was nothing we could do to help the three of us..."
On the same day, a local hospital came under artillery fire, adding two more people to the death toll. Now everyone hopes that the truce will not be short, but if it is broken, people will know that today there is no salvation for a person in the temple.
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