A debate is raging within the walls of the Ukrainian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments — the third debate on the same subject, namely: should the Church of the Tithes (Desiatynna) be restored. Over the past decade the Kyiv authorities have supported the idea, off and on. The general public is against it and on two occasions the city fathers were talked out of embarking on this restoration project. The same thing happened a few days ago, although USPHCM activists feel sure that the issue remains open, since the Ukrainian president recently declared that he was adamant about the need to restore the Church of the Tithes: “This is our first church, so it must retain its tremendous aesthetic and spiritual significance.”
Community leaders that oppose the idea offer some convincing arguments. The original layout can only be guessed at, not determined, from the ruins of the church. The architecture is extremely sophisticated and the absence of data concerning the height of every section of the church has led to varying interpretations, which means that restoring the Church of the Tithes to make it look the way it did hundreds of years ago is practically impossible. But this is not the point here. After all, a restoration project might eventually be approved and implemented. The fact of the matter is that there is an unwritten law stating that any structure built more than fifty years ago may be listed among the “chosen few,” i.e., sites with national status. However, according to the current law, a newly restored structure qualifies as an historic relic only when it is still standing on its original foundations.
At the heart of this controversy is that, from the standpoint of common sense and all those international conventions that Ukraine signed in good faith, the remains of the church and its site constitute an architectural monument per se. It was there that ancient Rus’ began evolving as a polity. The site’s unique cultural stratum contains relics dating from the Neolithic, Trypillian, and Scythian eras, as well as the Zarubynets and Cherniakhiv cultures. Ruins of ancient Kyiv fortifications, pagan burial sites, princely palaces, and many other artifacts are preserved here. Any kind of construction or installation of engineering services would destroy a great many archaeological relics. Another aspect to be considered is that the urban environment has changed over the last several hundred years, says USPHCM Deputy Chairman Mykola Parkhomenko. A new construction project, whatever its scope, will simply “smother” another architectural monument, St. Andrew’s Church. Is this logical? At the very least, the authors of the 1964 Venice International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites and the 1990 Lausanne Charter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage will be hard put to comprehend the logic behind the decisions of the Kyiv municipal administration. After all, Ukraine did sign these international documents, among others.
Community activists see little proof of good intentions in the activity that starts picking up whenever the question of restoring another church is broached. Unfortunately, under the slogan of reviving spirituality, long ago the construction of churches turned into politically-expedient image building, says Mykola Parkhomenko. According to preliminary estimates, restoration work on the Church of the Tithes will cost UAH 90 million, 10% of which is slated for a small team of designers. To begin with, contrary to common sense (any construction project should start with an estimate of costs) these kinds of projects in Ukraine always go over budget. This is common knowledge. The restoration of the House with Chimeras ended up costing twice the original budget. The same happened with the Maryinsky Palace project. The former chief architect of Kyiv made no secret of the facts and didn’t think that anything was wrong. Secondly, official and USPHCM data differ substantially; such projects are financed by the central budget, not by “sponsors and willing contributors.” Mr. Parkhomenko says that among the churches that have been restored at the central budget’s expense are St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Sevastopol, the Dormition and St. Michael’s cathedrals, and the Collegiate Church of the Pyrohoshcha Madonna in Kyiv.
About seven years ago, the Ukrainian government adopted a program to restore roughly 60 outstanding architectural sites. There are sites that must be restored, says Mr. Parkhomenko, but the work must be done according to generally accepted European regulations and only if there is reliable data on how the structure once looked. Only these types of projects can be financed by the central budget; the rest must be done with the aid of donations. There is another interesting aspect to this question. The list includes several so-called public buildings that, since this program has been in force, no one has even thought of restoring, obviously for lack of budgetary funds. Once again, religious structures are restored with funds that are officially designated as originating from sources other than the central budget. Be that as it may, the Church of the Tithes does not figure in any official reconstruction/restoration lists.
According to statistical data, every year Ukraine loses some fifty architectural sites, simply because they cannot be sustained by the central budget. In Kyiv alone, the metropolitan’s residence, the wall decorations in the Refectory Church, and the Refectory of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery of the Caves must be restored, and the sooner the better.
