During WW I in 1915 artillery damaged the cupol on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary Church; a russian shell landed on it. To remember this event, a set of postcards was published with the image of the ruin inside the church. In the photo—the remains of the cupol on the floor and the untouched iconostas, which has survived in the church until today. In the 1960s father Volodymyr Yarema (later UAOC Patriarch Dmytriy) served in the Nativity of the Virgin Mary Church. He was an accomplished scholar of sacral art. In the altar part of the church Yarema’s frescoes of the twelve apostles have remained intact but unfortunately were repainted during the renovation of the church in the 1990s, and do not do justice to the original.
Andriy Kryzhanivskyy