Church of St. Basil the Great, Lykitsary

TheChurch of St. Basil is a wooden church in the village of Likitsary, Zakarpattia region, an architectural monument of national importance (#193). It is located in the middle of this small village, near the road and cemetery. The three-tiered wooden church in the Boyko style was originally built in the middle of the seventeenth century. However, in 1748 (or 1746), during a thorough reconstruction, the church received its modern shape. When a major renovation was carried out in 1932, the church's towers were covered with tin (according to other sources, it was in 1930, the year written on the tower).

The church is made of wood, three-sided, three-tiered, made of spruce beams. The corner joints are made by mortising into a simple double-cut lock with a hidden straight spike. The five-walled log cabin of the nave and Babinets, as well as the altar part, are covered with one high roof of soft outlines. A low square tower with a Baroque finish rises above the chancel. A similar small dome is located above the eastern log house. The building is encircled by a dormer, which rests on the crowns of the log cabin. A profiled cornice made of solid timber runs along the perimeter of the porch and roof. The floor is made of torn sandstone slabs. Until recently, the end of the church was covered with tin, but at the expense of the local community, it was removed and a shingle roof was installed. The stone and wooden bell tower was built in the nineteenth or twentieth century.

You can also see the date "1980" on the tower. - this year they were again covered with metal sheets. In 1985, the interior was changed: a wooden floor was laid (previously the floor was laid with sandstone slabs), the walls and ceiling were covered with cardboard, and electricity was installed. In 1988, the icons of the three-row iconostasis were clumsily repainted. The icons of the feast day row were replaced with reproductions. The wooden frame bell tower with two bells is placed on a high stone foundation. The smaller bell was made in 1820 in Presov (Slovakia), and the large bell was cast in 1924 by the famous Transcarpathian foundryman Ferenc Egri. The last external repair was made in 2008. It is used by the Orthodox community of the Moscow Patriarchate.

There are only three tiny windows in the walls above the vault. The two-tiered stone and wooden bell tower is located to the east of the church. The church grounds are surrounded by a low stone wall.

Mykhailo Syrokhman writes: "As a rule, highlanders do not leave their villages, but in Likitsary the primary school has long been closed. Only half of the houses are still open, but on weekends the people of Likitsary return home. Nature here shows many variants of its beauty, as if rewarding people for the hard mountain life. There is also the Church of St. Basil the Great, the only wooden church in the Perechyn district. The small building looms as a compact silhouette on the hillside in the middle of the village. Wooded hills dominate the surroundings, and above them is the majestic massif of the Rivne valley. Nature seems to set off the inherent tone of touching naivete of the church, the tone of a life that has long passed and will not return, except for traces on the walls of houses, on porch posts, and on wooden rafts.

The two-story, three-domed church was built of spruce in the seventeenth century in the Boyko style. In 1748, the church was rebuilt and acquired its modern appearance. Although the tower and gable roof gave it a resemblance to basilica churches, its silhouette clearly indicates its Boyko origin. The walls of the log cabins and the hipped ceilings of the nave and altar log cabin have been preserved from the original construction; a flat ceiling is arranged over the Babynets. Around the perimeter of the church there is a fence based on the crowns of the log cabins. Profiled cornices made of solid timber are laid under the overhang and the roofs. Above the chancel is a low two-tiered square tower with a spherical dome. A similarly shaped miniature tower crowns the roof ridge above the altar. There are four windows on the southern façade and two on the northern façade. Significant repairs, and possibly partial reconstruction, were carried out in 1932, when both towers were covered with tin.