Is it true that the temple of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was burned in the Nikolaev region?

In April 2023, a video circulated in which a church belonging to the UOC was allegedly burning. The video was accompanied by an explanation that this is a temple in the Nikolaev region. We decided to check if this is true.

Both the media and bloggers reported about an allegedly burned church in the Nikolaev region. On April 5 he spoke about this “Tsargrad-TV", the next day - TV channel "Moscow 24" And "News" Popular Telegram channels also wrote about the temple, including “Ne.Sugar"(250,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Observer🇷🇺🇺🇦"(220,000), Voblya (162,000), Readovka (131,000), "Ostashko! Important" (52,000) and "Solovyov"(18,000). Of the last three channels, however, the recording was subsequently deleted.

Reports of an allegedly burned church in the Nikolaev region began to appear on April 5. The earliest post on Telegram that we could find was an entry in the channel “Putin on Telegram"(288,000 views). It was accompanied by a clarification that “radicals”—supporters of the Ukrainian church—burned a church in the village of Novopoltavka.

It is necessary to clarify that the message appeared in the background escalation of the conflict between the Ukrainian authorities and Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate. Russian media and pro-Kremlin bloggers call parishioners of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine “Ukrainian radicals” and “schismatics” (OCU). Ukrainian authorities demanded that the UOC leave the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra after the end of the lease on March 31, and the rector of the monastery, Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed), who is accused of approving Russian aggression, was also placed under house arrest.

StopFake Project discoveredthat the video, which was spread across social networks and the media, actually has nothing to do with Ukraine. It was published on YouTube back in 2013 under the title “The church in Ilyinka 4 is burning.” It was uploaded by a user Elena Kurganova - judging by other videos, a parishioner of this church.

Ilyinka is a village in the Volodarsky district of the Astrakhan region. It was there that the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God burned down in 2013. This was a serious incident for the region: the church of the early 20th century with its carved frames was considered a local landmark. Was dedicated to the fire plot Soyuz TV channel, in which representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, the vice-governor, and a State Duma deputy commented on the incident.

In 2013, regional media remindedthat the church already burned in 2004. In 2016 the temple built again.

As for the village of Novopoltavka, Nikolaev region, there really is a UOC temple there - Church of St. Mary Magdalene Equal to the Apostles. But the only thing that resembles the church burning in the video is the presence of a bell tower and a belfry. The photo shows a characteristic gate that is not in the video.

Thus, the video, which is being distributed as evidence of the alleged burning of a church in the Nikolaev region of Ukraine, actually depicts a fire in Russia, in the Astrakhan region. This story has nothing to do with Ukraine.

Cover photo: screenshot “Verified”

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What do our verdicts mean?

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