Blind Devotion
A Lugansk cossack builds a church under Ukrainian shelling
Nikolay Tarasenko has been building an Orthodox Church on a mountain in his hometown of Kamenka, in Lugansk People’s Republic since the 1990s. Nikolay, his family members and locals – have all participated in the construction process. When the war broke out in the Donbass in 2014, the project continued regardless. The church’s domes were built under constant shelling. “Then the attack started and they dropped about 70 guided aerial bombs on the Church. The heaviest of these bombs weighed in at 250 kilogram. About 18 of such heavy bombs were dropped, but not a single fragment reached the church. Not a single one,” says Nikolay.
Despite the fact that Nikolay is building a church, he stated that he “wouldn’t call himself a believer”. In the documentary, Nikolay talks about his search for God and why after years of travelling around the world, he decided to come back to his homeland to build a house of God.
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