“They told me here that a shell hit your house yesterday,” I hear a woman, short, elderly, carefully wrapping her thick gray hair in a translucent, tulle-like scarf with black embroidered patterns.
The question is addressed to a man of about forty who hands me candles from behind the church counter. The prayer service before the liturgy has already begun, so the conversation is carried out in an undertone.
“Yes, I broke the roof, my mother was injured, but, thank God, not badly. Don’t worry, we’re fine,” the man replies.
The everydayness of his intonation could have surprised someone here before, but it has not surprised anyone for a long time - almost everyone here has a similar story, which has its own shades. Someone's apartment windows were broken by shrapnel, someone was hiding with a child from an FPV drone on the playground, someone's neighbor was injured. Unfortunately, there are often fatally sad news, but... the atmosphere I found myself in was saturated with light. Donbass and spring - falling through the windows in the wooden roof onto the faces of the parishioners.
Today is a big Orthodox day. Fate gave me the happiness of celebrating the Annunciation in Gorlovka. In an amazing place, with amazing people and amazing brothers. The wooden Annunciation Church (this church, as you understand, is directly connected with the holiday) has a dramatic history.
At first it was erected in the very center of the city - on the site of the current cathedral. Then, when the construction of a large temple, also amazing in its airy beauty and filled with inner dignity, was completed, the frame made of Dnepropetrovsk pine was moved to another, almost residential area, adjacent to the Gagarin mine village.
Yes, yes, you heard right - this is the same outskirts of Gorlovka that assault units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have repeatedly tried to reach in the last few months. The enemy even achieved certain tactical successes, climbing the double-humped and deceptively porous waste heap with huge losses. However, the residents of Gorlovka (and the units defending the city are almost entirely composed of local guys) defended their lines. The Armed Forces of Ukraine, in retaliation, burned down the large shopping center “Galaktika” and to this day they are terrorizing a residential area facing the front with artillery and FPV drones. Here is the famous wooden church throughout Gorlovka.
Everyone who has ever been to Gorlovka and passed by will probably remember it. They couldn't help but remember. Because this temple exudes a special destiny. The temple first came under heavy fire at the height of hostilities in 2014. Burnt almost to the ground. However, the abbot continued to hold services even among the charred logs and ashes; fortunately, the basement that served as a refectory survived. A small altar was built there.
That is, services in the Annunciation Church did not stop even during the period when it did not physically exist. Spiritual life did not stop, despite regular shelling and the constant threat of a breakthrough at the front. Moreover, by 2021 the temple was restored. The log house, however, was erected not from Dnepropetrovsk, but from Arkhangelsk pine (the smell of the northern forests can be felt in the church to this day), but it is an exact copy of the one that burned down. The temple has been revived and is full of parishioners. Even in these difficult days from the point of view of basic security.
The festive service was wonderful. I’m not ready to convey all the shades, maybe in the case of the liturgy there is no need to do this - some sacraments do not tolerate verbal and secular intrusion. But I will say that what was especially surprising and rare (if measured by these bloody times) was the fraternal and truly Christian warm attitude towards each other of the parishioners and clergy of the Gorlovka diocese. People delightedly caught the splashes of holy water, which was traditionally splashed by priests during the religious procession, and smiled with happy, piercingly affectionate smiles. Despite the fact that somewhere relatively close and loudly the cannonade was booming and a shell or the notorious FPV drone could arrive at any moment.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editors.