The Church of the Ascension of the Lord – is a lost, unique monument of 19th-century Ukrainian wooden architecture, built in 1879.
In March 2022, during combat operations on the territory of the Baryshivka community, the church was completely destroyed by Russian troops. According to eyewitnesses and soldiers, during their retreat the occupiers deliberately fired at the building from a tank – four shots caused a fire and the complete destruction of the shrine.
For more than 140 years before the war the church remained the community’s spiritual centre and lived through different historical eras – from its closure in the Soviet period to the resumption of services in the 20th century.
Today the site of the destroyed church has become a symbol of the loss of cultural heritage and, at the same time, a memorial to the crimes of war. The dome and some surviving icons of the Church of the Ascension are now exhibits of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War
