page_title: Holy Presentation Church
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Holy Presentation Church / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Holy Presentation Church (back view) in Beryslav
context_page_description: Holy Presentation Church is an Orthodox church in the Beryslav City. The first name is the Resurrection Church. It is the monument of the XVIII century built in 1725 of oak; the roof is made of iron. In 1784, the Church was transported by the Cossacks along the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhian Perevolochna fortress to Beryslav. From 1939 to 1941, the Church was closed. Today, the religious building belongs to the UOC community.
context_section_description: In 1725, the Сhurch was built as a military church in the Cossack fortress Perevolochna in Poltava province (guberniia) (now Dnipro Region), on the border of Zaporizhian Sich. It was located 350 kilometers from the place where it is now.
  At the beginning of the XV century, these lands (now Beryslav Raion) were the southern borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There was a custom known as Vitovtova. There was a Dnipro River ferry – Tavanskyi pereviz, which got its name from the Tavan Island. In the XVI century, these lands were captured by The Crimean Khanate, and instead of the custom built the fortress Kyzy-Kermen ("Maiden castle"), which became an obstacle for light ships (called "chaika") of Zaporizhian Cossacks in the lower reach of the Dnipro River and the Black Sea. In 1689, during the Crimean campaign, the Russian army under the command of knyaz N. Golitsyn unsuccessfully tried to capture the fortress. Only in 1695, after a long siege by Russian troops, together with Zaporizhian Cossacks, managed to capture Kyzy-Kermen and these lands passed to the Russian Empire.
  In 1784, the Cossacks rafted the Church over the Dnipro River to Kyzy-Kermen, which in the same year received the status of the city and was named Beryslav. According to legend, on the raft on which the Church was transported, there was an inscription: "take and glorify" (“bery i slav”). The name of the city comes from that phrase.
  "At that time by decree of Empress Catherine II began settling in the South of Ukraine, and people from Poltava took with them this shrine - said priest Alexander. - There are two versions of its delivering. According to the first, the whole Church was rafted along the Dnipro River, but in that case it would have remained only chips. Therefore, the second version is more reliable, according to which the Church was first took apart, then all parts were numbered, rafted, and then they were reassembled without a single nail on a new place..."
  There is a legend among the citizens of Beryslav that the Holy Presentation Church was washed away by the spring flood and sailed down the river straight to the city.
  This is a rare case in the history of Ukrainian architecture, but the oldest building of the city is older than Beryslav itself by more than half a century.
  After delivery, the Church was put in the historic center of the city, on the place of the current People's Hall (House of Culture), and consecrated in honor of the Resurrection of Christ (Easter). In 1853, at the midst of the Crimean war, for an unknown reason, the Church was moved outside of Beryslav – to the place where the Presentation cemetery was founded. The Church itself was re-consecrated in honor of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the former place was built a majestic Church, which was later demolished by the Soviet regime.
  In the first half of the XX century the Holy Presentation Church was closed, like all other Orthodox shrines. Right before the beginning of the Second World War, there was even a proposal to disassemble it for firewood and burn it: trees were very rare in the steppe areas.
  "But God kept this Holy place," said the priest, "and spiritual life in the Church was renewed only with the arrival of the Germans in 1941. They miraculously found the surviving priest Daniil, who had a broken spine, and literally forced him to resume church service."
  Now Holy Presentation Church is a protected architectural monument of the XVIII century.
caption: Holy Presentation Church (back view)
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