With Ukraine gaining independence, the recreation of the Lavra monastery began, its new bright page.

Our long-suffering spiritual shrine at various times experienced significant losses: perestroika, enemy invasions, fire. And on November 3, 1941, the irreparable happened – one of the most holy churches of Kievan Rus sunk into oblivion – the Assumption Cathedral was blown up.

For about 20 years, there have been disputes between architects, scientists regarding the feasibility and technology of rebuilding the temple.

On the threshold of the third millennium, in the year of the celebration of the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ, the national shrines were returned from non-existence to the people of Ukraine: according to the decree of President of Ukraine L. D. Kuchma number 20/96-rp dated January 27, 1996. “On priority measures to restore the complex of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery and the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in Kiev.” And orders of the Head of the Kiev City State Administration No. 870 from A. 12.06 .96 and No. 1377 of 09.09.97 “On Amendments and Addenda to the Kiev City State Administration dated 12.06.96 No. 870” the St. Michael’s Golden-domed Monastery was revived, the Cathedral of which is dedicated to the heavenly warrior, the patron of Kiev Archistratig at Michael and the Spensky Cathedral of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra – the house of the Mother of God, who said about our Holy Kievan Rus “I want to build a church in Kiev and I want to live in it”.

The cathedral in honor of the Dormition of the Mother of God provides us with its Mother’s cover and the everlasting Mother’s love – the prayers and tears of the Virgin for this place, for our people, for our Holy Apostolic Orthodox Church.

The complexity of the tasks of rebuilding the Assumption Cathedral was that a significant part of the ruins was split into separate elements and deformed. We have carried out special work on the strengthening of the facade with the help of brown injection micropiles.

By the way, all specialized domestic firms refused to perform these works due to their great complexity. Only the specialists of our company managed to successfully drill and strengthen the foundations and foundation of the cathedral in order to arrange brown injection piles.

And the main problem was to combine the surviving part of the structure with a new one. We conserved the old walls, closed all the cracks, and then “sewed” the walls of the existing aisle with horizontal reinforced concrete piles.

These works were carried out in such a way that the two volumes of the cathedral were one. We have applied this restoration method in Ukraine for the first time.

A unique work was also carried out on the manufacture of gilded domes and their “enlarged” block installation on a separate site, which made it possible to shorten the period of reconstruction of the cathedral by 3 months.

We must also take into account that the brickwork of the cathedral was carried out in the winter period in the “warm house”.

In total, 16 years passed between princely times between the beginning of the construction of the Assumption Cathedral and its consecration. Currently, the reconstructed Cathedral emerged from the ruins in less than 2 years. After almost 60 years, the prayer of God re-sounded under the arches of the Holy Dormition Church, symbolizing the independence of the spirit of our people and its striving for God and Freedom.

Therefore, to revive this handsome cathedral was our first and foremost duty.

First of all, we tried to return its iconostasis to the temple, because this is the heart of the temple, this is the guardian of our spirituality to which the soul rushes both at the hour of trial and during victories and successes.

Thus, the unique, extraordinary beauty, five-tier main iconostasis of the church, presented once by the most hetman of Skoropadsky and his wife, was recreated and returned to its historical place.

Restored iconostasis in Give John the Forerunner, Stephanievsky, Andrew the First-Called, Spaso-Preobrazhensky, John the Theologian.

Our further task was to recreate the painting of the Assumption Cathedral. The temple as a whole was painted in the style of Ukrainian Baroque during its heyday of the first half of the 18th century, with preserving the remnants of the original ancient painting.

In ancient times, fulfilling the testament of Theodosius, Stephen completed the construction of the Assumption Cathedral, in addition, built a monastery and enclosed it with a wooden wall.

As you can see, the fate of the cathedral, its walls, icons, paintings – this is also the fate of its builders, Lavra devotees, church leaders.

The second birth of the pearl of world Orthodoxy, the Assumption Cathedral, is a sort of Rubicon, the transition of which showed the tremendous efficiency of our restorers, building, scientific, artists.

With its restoration, the lost integrity of the largest of Kiev’s ancient architectural ensembles of world importance — the center of national pilgrimage, the “second Jerusalem” Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, returned.