In memory of Kiev’s defenders: the journalist about the construction of Tithes Church

The Tithes Monastery was consecrated as a place of eternal commemoration of Kievites and defenders of the city of all times, and that is why it is located on the site of the death of hundreds of people during the invasion of the Tatar Khan Batu, said journalist and publicist Vasily Anisimov to the RIA Novosti.

"They do not even understand why this chapel is there," he says. "This is a memorial temple. The fact is that all this territory, where the monastery stands, is a huge cemetery if you read the annals. During the invasion of Batu Khan, the first Tithes Church was destroyed: all the inhabitants gathered there, and the Mongols used battering weapons. A crush arose, and all the Kievites who tried to escape were killed there."

The writer said that when His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan, † 2014) consecrated the church, he said that it would be a memorial temple, "prayers for all Kievites, defenders of our city. When in 1928 the church was destroyed, 5 thousand Kiev priests were repressed and executed. Among them are ministers of the Tithes Church. All of them must also be remembered: the ancient martyrs, defenders of faith and truth, and modern ones. This is an Orthodox tradition, and what's wrong with that? Who did it prevent?"

In his opinion, in conditions when the population is becoming increasingly angry because of growing social problems, the authorities want to "accumulate" this protest energy and send it to the Church.

The Tithes Church was built in the 10th century on the site of the death of the first Russian martyrs Theodore and his son John. In 1169 the church was plundered by the troops of Prince Mstislav Andreyevich, the son of Andrei Bogolyubsky, in 1203 – by the troops of Rurik Rostislavich, and in 1240 the hordes of Baty Khan destroyed the temple, while taking Kiev. In the 1630s, St. Peter (Mogila) established a small chapel on the remains of the foundation for the eternal commemoration of the dead Kievites, and in the 19th century, Emperor Nicholas I erected a grand temple in the same place. Under Soviet rule, it was dismantled into bricks.

On February 9, at a meeting of the Standing Commission of the Kiev City Council on urban development, architecture and land use all 18 present deputies supported the petition calling for demolishing the Tithes Church.