Arsonist attacks historic Ukrainian Catholic church visited by St. John Paul II

By Gina Christian, OSV News

(OSV News) -- Police in Lviv, Ukraine, have arrested a 31-year-old man who set fire to a historic Ukrainian Greek Catholic church visited by St. John Paul II in 2001.

Rescue services responded to an early morning April 14 emergency call at the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God, where flames destroyed a significant portion of a door at the back of the structure. The blaze was quickly extinguished, and no injuries were reported.

In 2001, the church hosted an address to youth by St. John Paull II, with some half a million in attendance. The adjacent square was renamed for the pope, with a nearby monument and park dedicated to his honor as well.

Surveillance video enabled authorities to track down the arson suspect, a resident of Ukraine's western Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia) region.

The attack, which occurred on the Orthodox commemoration of Good Friday, was described by Lviv Oblast police chief Oleksandr Shlyakhovsky as uncharacteristic for the region, which has seen significantly fewer strikes by Russia in recent months amid that nation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to local media, Shlyakhovsky said "investigators will work further to find out the motives and all other circumstances of the commission of this crime."

Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, following sustained attacks initiated in 2014.

Hundreds of churches and other religious structures in Ukraine have been destroyed in recent months by Russian forces. An April 9 report from the nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War in Washington concludes Russia is systematically persecuting believers of several faiths in Ukraine, as part of a campaign of "cultural genocide."

In a Jan. 31-Feb. 1 presentation in Washington, the Ukrainian Institute for Religious Freedom counted just under 500 houses of worship that have been destroyed since Russia's full-scale invasion.