Court sentences Chernivtsi resident to prison for arson of synagogue

Consequences of the arson attack on the Sadhora Synagogue. Photo: Telegram channel of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine

On May 26, 2026, the Sadhora District Court sentenced a 31-year-old resident of Chernivtsi for intentional property damage and hooliganism. The man will spend two years in prison for arson of a synagogue and an attack on an Orthodox church. This was reported by the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor's Office on Facebook.

Prosecutors also proved in court that at the end of October 2025, the convicted man committed an act of vandalism on the territory of the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Chernivtsi. The man, motivated by hooliganism, tore down and broke the announcement board of the religious community.

A month later, the criminal broke into the premises of the Sadhora Synagogue and gathered sacred books from the shelves in the center of the prayer hall. He set fire to the religious literature, which led to a massive fire in the historic building. The fire destroyed books and the pulpit, and also seriously damaged the wall paintings and ceiling. Representatives of the Jewish community estimated the damage at 5 million hryvnias.

A psychiatric examination revealed behavioral disorders in the man but recognized his ability to understand his actions at the time of committing the crime. The court took into account the defendant's sincere repentance and full admission of guilt when determining the final sentence. The burned synagogue is an important spiritual center of the Hasidic world and was completely restored in 2017.

As the UOJ reported, in Kryvyi Rih, a sentence was announced for a teenager who set fire to a synagogue to increase his authority among friends. The court sentenced the minor to two years of probation supervision for attacking the building using bottles with incendiary mixture.

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