Church of the Archangel Michael, Kolomyia

The Church of St. Michael the Archangel was built in 1855. It has survived to this day almost unchanged. The authors of the church's iconostasis and images were the famous Ukrainian artist K. Ustianovych and the Hungarian artist Miklos. The church immediately became a center of spiritual, national, and cultural development for Ukrainians in Kolomyia. The wall paintings of the church were made in several stages by Kolomyia artist V. Krytsynskyi. In 1885 and 1892, he was assisted by teachers of the pottery school S. M. Dubytskyi and S. M. Dachynskyi in the execution of the paintings. The images of Christ the Blesser, the four evangelists, and the choir of angels were created then. Church fraternities, which operated at the church, guarded the faith and national culture. Among them: "The Brotherhood of St. Michael the Archangel, the women's Brotherhood of the Holy Family, and the Brotherhood of St. Peter the Apostle. The Brotherhood of the Holy Family was the longest-lived, consisting of women from Kolomyia, parishioners of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel. The Brotherhood existed until September 9, 1955.

This monastery of the Lord was designed for Kolomyia in Vienna. As we know, the foundation of a building is the foundation. This mighty wall with buttresses was reinforced with a man-made earthen mound and built on the remains of medieval defensive bastions, on which the Dominican Fathers' monastery stood until 1788. Until recently, the top layer of the hill was covered with charred bones, shards of household items, jewelry, and coins. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the square near the church was called the "Dominican plyats" as an echo of the Latin monastery.

"The Russian Council of June 1, 1902, states: "... the church of the town motherhouse was built with great difficulty and obstacles. It was begun in the days of the landlords, around the year 1838, with plans made in Vienna. It is not known what style it is, because one part of it is Byzantine and the other seems to be Gothic."

In 1855, a new brick cathedral was built on the site of the ancient Dominican monastery, which became possible with the active assistance of the then-parson, fabulist, publicist, and cultural and public figure Luka Dankevych. The parish and mother church gradually took on the appearance we are used to. Oddly enough, the lion's share of the construction of the Ukrainian shrine was contributed by an ethnic Austrian, Rudolf Kurzweil, the mayor of Kolomyia at the time, a philanthropist and owner of nearby settlements. The Church of St. Michael the Archangel was built in the year of our Lord 1864. But even in those days, newspapers were sounding the alarm that the stones in the walls were moving apart, and the church itself seemed to be girded with iron bars. The military was stationed in the unfinished temple walls.

A new design estimate for the completion cost the community 100,000 rynski. Anyone who had oxen or horses had to work for a week on the church construction. The author of these lines knows from the stories of old-timers, for example, that each of the people of Dyatkovets worked here for 40 days. And the parish priest Ivan Ozarkevych twice traveled by cart to the capital of the empire, Vienna, to personally receive permission from the emperor to complete the pious work as soon as possible.

After the solemn dedication on August 6, 1871, the largest church in the city opened its massive oak doors to the laity. Since 1878, the church was run by a rector and two cooperators. As is always the case, the finishing work, even after the opening of the church, lasted a long time, from 1885 to 1892. Some of the paintings were done in several stages by Stanisław-Mieczysław Dubicki, a teacher at the pottery school. The images of Christ the Blesser, St. Princess Olha, St. Cyril and Methodius, and the four evangelists were created at that time... Thus, the church combined a museum and a shrine of our culture, where wonderful examples of Ukrainian religious painting by Kornil Ustianovych, Theophilus Kopystynskyi, Severin Dachynskyi, and Yaroslav Lukavetskyi are collected. The latter created the image of the crucified Christ bent over the cup: "For all of you..." It is placed at the entrance on the left, and a copy was kept in the Vonsul family's home on the corner of Mickiewicza and Zamkova streets. As for Ustianovych, after graduating from the Vienna Academy of Arts, he began working on the painting of the iconostasis and images. Unfortunately, most of the artist's works are gone, some of them have been unsuccessfully restored, and only the lonely "Sower" above the wooden cauldron-ambo remains. The canvas is full of symbols borrowed from the Bible, with the sea and a sailboat in the background. In the interior, the gilded woodwork of the iconostasis by carver Yurii Morozenko from Zakarpattia attracts the eye with its amazing beauty. In 1912, the future Emperor Carlo Franz Josef, who was then serving under the Kolomyia dragoons, donated 300 gold roubles for its manufacture.

The Hungarian O. Miklos left us his own vision of the "Last Supper" on the altar's plafond, giving the apostles simple peasant features. In 1926, this monumental work was restored by the Pole Adolf Orzechowski, as evidenced by his signature. The wall paintings of the heavenly patrons in St. Michael's Church were created by a Pole, a teacher of drawing at the pottery school, Valerian Krycinski. The images of angelic choirs on the vault of the main church nave, made in accordance with the canons of the Eastern rite, have survived almost unchanged. Subsequently, their reproductions were published on black and white postcards, which were mass-produced as far away as Prague. Comparing them with the modern version, we can see a big difference not in favor of the latter. And only the Archangel Michael, true to his image, invariably takes his proper place in the church - in the right-side niche of the central vault, on the tetrapod, and finally proudly rises above the altar in the cross. To realize this architectural project, the church's "twenty" had to make a wise distribution of people's donations. "Instead of the roof and footsteps, in 1901 the church brotherhood of St. Michael's Church built an iron, forged fence that cost 4000 zlotys," wrote the Russian Council in 1902. This fence, which was quite substantial, was installed partially, that is, not around the church, as one would have liked, but only from the main facade. It has remained so to this day. A kind of wire fence along the slope of Yaroslavsky (now Andrey Sheptytsky) Street appeared in the late 1960s to prevent children from neighboring neighborhoods from tearing up the grass.

During the Russian occupation, not only the bells but also the copper roof were taken from the main Uniate church. In return, the Russians provided 15 bottles of white wine per month for church needs starting in November 1916. Seventy and seven serpentine oak steps must be overcome to reach the highest point. The four annunciators under the dome were installed only in 1923. There is an inscription on the outer plinth: "Sambir Vestry general patronage of the bell foundry of Karl Schwabe in Biała". The installation was carried out under the supervision of blacksmith Mykhailo Rubych, for which the blacksmith was honored to be called the "godfather" of Kolomyia church bells. The largest bell was named Mykhailo, as evidenced by its "body metric." The smallest one was named Andriychyk for its sonorous major voice. It offers a view of the neighboring tower with an old clockwork. To get there, you have to open a low door with a mysterious date written on it: "1883". Behind it, everything indicates that no one has visited this place for a long time, except for pigeons, who peacefully raise their young in the nests of their own colony. The massive pendulum of the clock has stopped its course.

Oleksandr Rusyn was destined to be the last Greek Catholic rector of St. Michael's Church. After the pseudo-council of 1946, he was forced by the advice of the higher clergy to "sign" Russian Orthodoxy. Not a single event in the city during the relative interwar lull could have gone without the active participation of this conscious religious figure, the longtime dean of Kolomyia. It was thanks to him that Kolomyia orphans and children of poor citizens were placed in "orphanages" under the care of nuns of the order of St. Basil the Great. One of those homes still stands on O. Dovbush Street, now a geriatric nursing home. Then, in the interwar period, a solid brick chapel was built on the initiative of the dean. Above the entrance is a relief image of the Virgin and Child, with an inscription below it: "This is your mother." In Soviet times, the stucco was dismantled, and the chapel itself was repurposed as a medical accounting office, which lasted until the proclamation of Ukrainian independence.

In 1944, people left the village of Illintsi, where they were temporarily evacuated. Already on their native Kolomyia land, they dug up hidden images wrapped in an old veret, plates with Franz Josef, and small utensils in the garden near their homes. Mass mobilization was beginning in the city. With the advance of the Soviet army to the west, wealthy Kolomyia families of conscripts brought "voty"-a donation to St. Michael's Church for the safe return of their children from the front. For this purpose, a narrow box was placed on display, where rings and chains sparkled on black velvet. Just before the Soviet offensive on the city, a German soldier was killed by a shell in front of the church door, and he was buried in a hurry on the opposite side of the street. A trace of the explosion remained on the church wall to the right of the entrance for a long time.

The "Black March" of 1946 came. The so-called Lviv Council banned the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The rector of the church, Fr. Rusyn, and the sexton were warned by the authorities not to use the bells, saying that they made a lot of noise. The church was threatened with closure. At the same time, the jewelry disappeared. And in high offices, they were planning to convert the religious building into warehouses. On October 11, 1955, tens of thousands of townspeople accompanied by 29 priests accompanied their pastor Oleksandr Rusyn on his last journey.

After the death of Dean Rusyn, the main church of the city was ruled by a native of Bukovyna, Orthodox priest S. Bilynsky, whom the townspeople never recognized. We must pay tribute to Emilia Matsiborko, the church choir director for many years, who convinced the choir members to continue attending rehearsals. Members of the church committee distributed to neighbors and family for temporary storage the most valuable religious attributes that in one way or another differed from the Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate: fans, crucifixes, and literature.

A heavy cross fell on the Kolomyia clergy. Fr. M. Sulyatytsky, Fr. M. Reshetylovych, Fr. V. Tymoshchuk, and Fr. M. Kysil were arrested and sent to camps in Kazakhstan. Father Mykola Vonsul was arrested twice, but this was not enough for the red occupiers - in 1974 he was found murdered in his home.

Nahirnyi V. Recent History of the Ancient City - Kolomyia: Vik, 2011 - pp. 215-220.