Receding Dniester in Khmelnytskyi region exposes foundation of flooded church
The foundation of St. John the Theologian Church, submerged during the construction of a hydroelectric power plant, has emerged for the first time in 45 years.
In Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi region, falling water levels in a tributary of the Dniester River have exposed the stone foundation of St. John the Theologian Church, which was submerged about 45 years ago during the construction of the Dniester Hydroelectric Power Plant, according to Glavcom.
The remains of the church have emerged in the former village of Kryvchany for the first time in four and a half decades. The earliest written references to the church, which then belonged to the parish of the village of Lyskivtsi, date back to 1725.
Over the centuries, the building was rebuilt several times. The last church, a wooden cruciform structure, survived the anti-religious campaigns of the 1930s. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet authorities closed the church and converted it into a warehouse.
Before the area was flooded in the late 1970s and early 1980s, workers building the hydroelectric power plant dismantled the wooden structure. The stone foundation was left in place and disappeared beneath the water.
As the UOJ previously reported, archaeologists had excavated the bell tower of an ancient cave monastery in the Khmelnytskyi region.
