Mykhalkove

Dnistrovskyi district · Chernivtsi region

Mikhalkove is a village in Ukraine, in the Sokyryansky district of the Chernivtsi region. It is located 22 km from the district center. The nearest railway station Romankivtsi is 9 km away. In the vicinity of the village, the remains of 2 settlements of the Trypillian culture (III millennium BC), one of the Early Iron Age (I millennium BC) and 2 of the Cherniakhiv culture (II-IV centuries AD) were discovered. The village was first mentioned in 1620. In March 1913, there were peasant riots in Mykhalkove. Its inhabitants participated in the Khotyn uprising of 1919 against the Romanian-boyarist occupiers. About 100 villagers went to defend their homeland during the German-Soviet war, 54 of them were killed, and their names are engraved on the monument-obelisk that was built in the center of Mykhalkove.

According to the data of 1859, 868 people (428 males and 440 females) lived in the owner's village of Khotyn district of Bessarabia province, there were 145 households, an Orthodox church, and a ferry crossing. As of 1886, the owner's village of Sekuryanska volost had a population of 934 people, 164 households, and an Orthodox church.

Mykhalkove is a village in the Mykhalkove village council. It was first recorded on the map of the French engineer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan (1595-1675), published in his cartographic work "Delineatio specialis et accurata Ukrainae. Cum suis Palatinatibus ac Distictibq, Provincycq adiacentibus" ("Special and detailed map of Ukraine with its voivodeships, districts, and provinces"), published in 1650 in Danzig by cartographer Wilhelm Gondius (Gondt). In written sources, it was first mentioned in the court charter of the Lord of the Moldavian principality Georgii Gica of March 5, 1659, in which he confirmed the transfer of the village of Ryshyntsi on the Dniester, called Mykhalkiv, to Mironashko and his brother Georgii, and other children of the former Khotyn pyrkalab Konstantin Styrchi.

The first church known to us, the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built in the village of Mikhalkove in 1590: "by the diligence and maintenance of the parishioners." It was located not far from the Dniester in the place where the village of Ryshyntsi, which we have already mentioned, used to be. In the second half of the eighteenth century, a new church, also of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, was built in its place. The Romanian church historian C. Tomescu (1890-1983), based on the archival documents available to him, indicated the date of construction of this church as 1761. According to other sources, it happened in 1776.

According to the "Information to the Moldavian couch from Khotynsky about the number of villages, their yards, and people" of December 25, 1772, one priest served at this church. According to the economic census of the Khotyn district in 1774, there was also one priest, "priest Khryhor", serving at the same church. The 1817 census of the Khotyn district shows that at that time there was one priest, one clerk, and one sexton serving at the church, and the widow of a former priest lived in the village.

The eighteenth-century Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Mykhalkove was built of wood and covered with straw. According to church "forms" for 1812-1813: "built of good wood, not too old and not too small; there are enough clothes and church books." As of 1824: "of good wood, covered with straw". The church had a wooden bell tower, also covered with straw.

Local peasants and landowners always took care of their church. In the first half of the nineteenth century, with the financial support of the landowner Matvii Krupenskyi (who permanently resided in the neighboring village of Lomachyntsi), a house for priests was built in the village of Mikhalkove. In 1891, the Chisinau Spiritual Consistory, in its resolution of 18/24 October, decided that the parishioners of the church in the village of Mikhalkove and the owner, noblewoman Olga Mondrzycka, should be thanked by the diocesan authorities for the installation of a new iconostasis in the local church at their expense. In 1898, the archpastoral blessing was granted to the noblewoman Yelizaveta Shymanska for a donation of 50 rubles worth of money and church utensils for the needs of the church. At the same time, co-owner Heorhii Mondrzycki and the priest's daughter Domnika Polianska made efforts to decorate the Mikhalkivska church.

Today, the village has a stone church, also consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 2011, it underwent major renovations: the interior of the church was completely restored, the exterior walls of the building were restored, the altar was decorated in a new way, and seats for the church choir, both children and adults, were re-equipped. The leadership of the village council, together with the village community, arranged and installed gas heating for the building. On September 21, 2011, the renovated church was consecrated by Bishop Meletiy of Khotyn and Bessarabia, vicar of the Chernivtsi diocese.

Every year on September 21, the village celebrates the church holiday and the village day.