The Three-Anastasia Church is the largest temple in Hlukhiv, the former Cossack hetman capital in Sumy Oblast. The large five-domed neo-Byzantine cathedral was built in the late 19th century at the expense of the Tereshchenko sugar-magnate family. Outside, it resembles the Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv, while inside it impresses with a white marble iconostasis and murals by the Svedomsky brothers. Members of the Tereshchenko family are also buried here.
The Hetman Church
The first masonry Anastasia Church was erected in 1717 in the southeastern corner of the city fortress, on the site of the burned-down wooden Resurrection Church. The funds were provided by Hetman's wife Anastasiia Skoropadska, wife of Hetman Ivan Skoropadskyi, so the locals called the church the "hetman church". It was built after the model of the Ilyin Church in Subotiv. In 1784, the temple suffered from a fire and was fully rebuilt only in 1816 — already in classical forms.
Later, the small church was attached to the Trinity Cathedral, and services in it ceased. They were resumed in 1846 by the Hlukhiv merchant Artemii Tereshchenko, who began maintaining the temple at his own expense and arranged new altars in 1861 and 1872.
The New Tereshchenko Cathedral
In 1884, the design of the new temple, developed by St. Petersburg academician of architecture Andrii Gun, was approved. The cathedral has a large cubic volume with high windows and five hemispherical domes; the corner drums feature openwork bell towers. The interior is filled with light. The iconostasis is made of white Italian marble, the pre-altar partition of gray marble — according to the drawings of Oleksandr Murashko, and the walls were painted by brothers Oleksandr and Pavlo Svedomsky, who also worked in the Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv.
Artemii Tereshchenko (who died in 1877), his wife Yefrosiniia, his sons Mykola — a well-known philanthropist — and Fedir, and his daughter-in-law Pelageia are buried in the church. Today it is the largest temple in the city.
How to get there
Address: Hlukhiv, Spaska Street, 2. Hlukhiv is in Shostka Raion in the north of Sumy Oblast, 330 km from Kyiv along the highway to Moscow via Baturyn and Krolevets. Nearby, on Rudchenko Square, is the Spaso-Preobrazhenska Church, and close by is the local history museum.
What to consider
Hlukhiv lies about 15 km from the border with Russia, and the city is regularly shelled. Before the trip, be sure to check the security situation and the restrictions of the Sumy Oblast Military Administration, monitor air raid alerts, and know where the nearest shelter is.
