The Church of St Michael the Archangel in Uzhok: Boyko quiet below the pass

The Uzhok Pass lies on the Main European Watershed: on one side its rivers run to the Danube, on the other to the Vistula. Below the pass stands a small dark wooden church, which craftsmen from both sides of the Carpathians finished on 11 June 1745 — and carved the date above the door so there would be no disputes.

In brief

History

The inscription above the door frame records the completion of the work in June 1745 and the names of the craftsmen: Pavlo Toniv from Bitlia — a village on the Galician, now Lviv, side of the Carpathians — and Ivan Tsyhanyn from the neighbouring Transcarpathian village of Tykhyi. Other researchers give other spellings of the names — “Pavlo from Butlia”, “P. Cherneiv”, “I. Tsyhanynyk”. An episcopal visitation of 1751 found in Uzhok a “new church” with all its books and two bells.

The legends about the village sound like the beginning of a ballad. Once, they say, there were seven mills here. After a plague new settlers came — from Hnyla, Yavoriv and Sianky. And the church itself was supposedly first built high on the slope and only later moved lower, almost down to the road, because it was hard for the elderly to climb.

In 1895 the church was raised and the lower rounds of the log frames were replaced. This is attested by the inscription “1895 Hyrych Petro churchwarden raised [it]”. Another inscription names the churchwarden Havrylko Vasyl, who apparently organised the repair. In 1927 a separate bell tower was built nearby — this date is also given in the ICOMOS evaluation for UNESCO. During the First World War the Austrian authorities requisitioned the bells. The two new, heavier bells could never be hung in the tower.

For more than a hundred years the Uzhok church has remained among the best-known wooden churches of Zakarpattia: its photographs were printed in books and on postcards, and Transcarpathian artists painted it; these images decorated the bishop’s chapel and the chapel of the teachers’ seminary in Uzhhorod. In Soviet times the church was protected as an architectural monument of the Ukrainian SSR (No. 198). On 21 June 2013 the church became part of the UNESCO World Heritage property “Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine”. The nomination covers a plot of 0.12 hectares with a buffer zone of 1.81 hectares; the church was inscribed under criteria (iii) and (iv) — as testimony to a tradition and an outstanding example of a type of building. In 2018 it was entered in the State Register as a monument of national importance. In the same year, 2013, the regional budget allocated over UAH 2 million for heritage protection, including repairs in Uzhok and Yasinia.

Timeline

The numbers in square brackets are source numbers in the list at the bottom of the page. The label “according to …” means that a fact is confirmed by only one source. The “Legends” section contains tales and legends: they are recorded in sources but not confirmed by documents.

Era I. The village below the pass

1. 11th–10th centuries BC

   A bronze sword was found near Uzhok. It shows that people lived here in ancient times. ^{[13, 17]}

2. 1582

   The first written mention of the village: Uzhok is a hereditary possession of the Drugeth family. The village takes its name from the Uzh River, which rises here. ^{[13, 16, 17]}

3. 17th – early 18th century

   According to local tradition, after a plague the village was deserted and was resettled by people from the Galician villages of Hnyla, Yavoriv and Sianky. ^{[15, 17, 18]}

Era II. A church by craftsmen from both sides of the Carpathians

1. 1745

   On 11 June construction of the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael was completed. The date and the names of the craftsmen, Pavlo Toniv from Bitlia and Ivan Tsyhanyn from Tykhyi, are carved on the door frame. ^{[8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 29]}

2. 1745

   M. Syrokhman gives the inscription as: “the masters Pavel Toneiv of Bitlia and Ivan Tsyhaninov of Tykhyi”. According to him, inscriptions with a date and the builders’ names are rare. ^[8]

3. 1751

   An episcopal visitation mentions a “new church” in Uzhok with all its books and two bells. At that time the parish belonged to the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo, headed by Bishop Mykhailo Manuil Olshavskyi. ^{[12, 15, 21, 26]}

4. 18th–19th centuries

   A spa operated in Uzhok on mineral springs. The springs bore people’s names: “László”, “Béla”, “Marcsa”. ^{[13, 16, 17]}

5. 1842

   A cast-iron statue of Hercules strangling a serpent was set up by one of the springs. ^{[17, 24]}

6. 1895

   The church was raised and the lower rounds of the log frames were replaced, as attested by the inscription “1895 Hyrych Petro churchwarden raised [it]”. Another inscription names the churchwarden Havrylko Vasyl. According to Karpaty.rocks, the repair was done by a Tsyhanyn from Tykhyi, possibly a descendant of one of the builders. ^{[12, 15]}

Era III. Wars on the pass

1. 1914

   In September, in the area of the Uzhok Pass, the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen first went into battle against Cossack units of the Russian army. The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine dates these battles to September 1915. ^{[13, 27, 28]}

2. 1914–1915

   From September 1914 to May 1915 the Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies fought for the pass. According to TravelUA, the front passed through the village itself twice. ^{[17, 23]}

3. 1914–1918

   The Austrian authorities requisitioned the church bells for military needs. ^{[15, 17, 19]}

4. 1915

   The spa was destroyed by artillery fire: two sanatorium buildings with 30 baths, a military hospital and five villas. Whose artillery it was is unknown. The statue of Hercules was later moved to Uzhhorod Castle. ^{[13, 16, 17]}

5. About 1920

   An unknown photographer took a picture of the church for an album of photographs of Subcarpathian Rus; the image has survived through the World Digital Library. ^[30]

6. 1920s

   The artist Adalbert Erdélyi painted “Pilgrimage in Uzhok”. Transcarpathian artists painted the church more than once, and its image decorated the chapels of the bishop’s residence and of the teachers’ seminary in Uzhhorod. ^{[12, 15, 30]}

7. 1927

   Next to the church, in the north-west corner of the yard, a new two-tier bell tower of the Verkhovyna type was built. The new bells were heavier than the requisitioned ones, and no one dared to hang them in the tower above the narthex. ^{[2, 14, 15, 18, 20]}

8. 1929

   The Czech researcher Bohumil Vavroušek published two photographs of the Uzhok church in the book “Kostel na dědině a v městečku”. ^[30]

9. 1934

   The Czechoslovak authorities laid out the military cemetery on the pass and erected a monument. 363 soldiers are buried here; only 43 have been identified. ^{[22, 23]}

10. 1944

    On 16 October the Red Army entered Uzhok. According to TravelUA, two Red Army soldiers and nine soldiers of the Czechoslovak Army Corps were killed in the village. ^{[13, 17]}

Era IV. A protected monument in the Soviet era

1. 1947–1961

   The church windows were enlarged. According to the ICOMOS evaluation. ^[2]

2. 1949

   In August the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo was formally liquidated; officially only the Orthodox eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church operated. The Uzhok parish became Orthodox; the sources cite no separate document on the transfer of this particular parish. ^{[21, 25]}

3. 1945–1985

   According to M. Syrokhman, 26 wooden and 32 masonry churches were destroyed in Zakarpattia. The Uzhok church survived and remained in use. ^[10]

4. Soviet period

   The church was taken under protection as an architectural monument of the Ukrainian SSR (No. 198). ^{[12, 15]}

Era V. Under UNESCO protection

1. 1991

   According to Ukrinform, ownership of the church was registered to the religious community, not to the village council. ICOMOS also notes that the owner is the church, not the state. ^{[2, 7]}

2. 2009

   The churches in Uzhok and Yasinia were selected as the two Transcarpathian candidates for the joint Polish–Ukrainian UNESCO nomination. ^{[1, 6]}

3. 2013

   On 21 June, at the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee (Cambodia), the church was inscribed on the UNESCO list as part of the property “Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine”: 8 churches from Ukraine and 8 from Poland. ^{[1, 4]}

4. 2013

   The ICOMOS evaluation: a plot of 0.12 ha, a buffer zone of 1.81 ha; the state of conservation is good, but the plastic lining of the interior may harm the wood, and the metal covering of the bell tower should eventually be replaced with shingles. ^[2]

5. 2013

   In July the village head Mykhailo Leshko told Radio Svoboda that residents feared the church would be turned into a museum; officials assured them it would remain in use. The regional budget allocated over UAH 2 million for monuments, including those in Uzhok and Yasinia. ^[5]

6. About 2017

   The churchyard was paved with coloured paving tiles. A Ukrinform author and the researcher M. Syrokhman regard this as a breach of the protection zone requirements. ^{[7, 9]}

7. 2018

   The church was entered in the State Register of Immovable Monuments as a monument of national importance (No. 070022), according to the English-language Wikipedia. ^[12]

8. 2018

   In November the tour operator Ihor Hubilit sent inquiries to the regional administration, the village council, the eparchy and the Ministry of Culture about tourist access to the church. ^[7]

9. 2019

   On 30 March community representatives stopped a tour by the guide Liubomyr Vorobii in the churchyard; since then he has shown the church from the road. ^[7]

10. 2019

    In July a commission of the regional administration came to the church but was not given the keys. The Mukachevo eparchy of the UOC (MP), in a letter of 23.07.2019, stressed that the church is in use, visits must be coordinated with the service schedule, and the community carries out repairs at its own expense; the regional administration pointed out that without a protection agreement state funds for repairs are impossible. ^[7]

11. Before 2019

    The community installed new doors that partly covered the 1745 inscription with the craftsmen’s names. ^{[8, 14]}

12. 2021

    Mykhailo Syrokhman noted that after the UNESCO listing there had been “changes for the worse” in Uzhok. In 2019–2021 the community belonged to the UOC (MP). ^{[3, 7, 9]}

Lost and restored

Architecture

The church consists of three log frames: the narthex (babinets), the central square and widest frame of the nave, and the sanctuary. A masonry sacristy is attached to the sanctuary. Above the nave rises a tent-roofed top with three breaks (zalomy); above the sanctuary, a smaller top with two breaks. Above the narthex stands a small timber-framed bell turret: it is taller than the sanctuary top but lower than the central one. The broad planes of the roofs and the encircling eaves unite the three frames into a single mass.

The church stands on a hill within the Uzhanskyi National Nature Park, part of the East Carpathian Biosphere Reserve. For a traveller coming down from the pass, it is the first architectural monument of Zakarpattia.

This is what distinguishes the Uzhok church from a classic Boyko church, where the three tops are arranged symmetrically with the dominant in the centre. Here the western top has already begun to become a tower, but has not yet outgrown the central tent roof. Researchers see this as a sign of the Transcarpathian sub-style of the Boyko school. UNESCO classes Uzhok as the Boyko type together with the churches in Smolnik in Poland and Matkiv in Ukraine: these are churches on both sides of the Polish–Ukrainian border near Slovakia. Inside, the passage from the narthex to the nave is clearly defined.

Below are two elements of the church: in a photo and in a drawing. The drawings show the form, not exact dimensions.

The central top with its breaks

The tent roof above the nave has three low breaks — steps where the pitch of the roof changes. Above the sanctuary is the same kind of top, only lower and with two breaks. Everything is covered with shingles.

The bell tower

The separate bell tower has two tiers, is square in plan and has a four-sided tent roof. It was built in the 1920s, a decade after the Austrian authorities took away the old bells. In 2013, according to Radio Svoboda, the bell tower needed repair and had been clad in metal to preserve it; the community planned to restore the wooden cladding.

Details that are easy to miss

The church that was “raised”. The 1895 inscription — “the churchwarden raised [it]” — refers not to weighing but to jacking up: the church was lifted to replace the rotten lower logs of the frames. This is a routine operation for wooden churches, but its author rarely leaves a signature on the wall.

An iconostasis dated in different ways. Most sources date the carved gilded iconostasis to the 18th century. The Carpathian tourist Wooden Route dates the carving to the 17th century. In 2013 the village head told Radio Svoboda about old icons and early printed books of the 17th century and an 18th-century altar.

A bell older than the church. According to the same village head, the bell that still calls people to services is about a hundred years older than the church itself. We found no documentary confirmation of this date in the sources.

Plastic versus wood. UNESCO experts criticised the interior: the walls were lined on the inside with plastic, which does not let the wood breathe. Parishioners did this for warmth. Even earlier the walls had been covered with cardboard and paper, the icons repainted, and artificial flowers appeared in the interior. What to look for on site is the play of light: the narthex is dark, while the nave is lit through the upper windows, and a space a little over 10 metres high seems taller.

Hercules by the spring. Uzhok’s strangest story is connected not with the church but with a mineral spring nearby: according to a tourist guide, a cast-iron statue of Hercules (1842) was once moved from it to Uzhhorod Castle. The church meanwhile stayed where it was — if you do not count that first, legendary descent from the hill.

Shingles that are looked after. The roof is covered with shingles, and according to the village head they are treated with a protective compound every two years. This is a case where a monument lives not thanks to a major restoration but thanks to regular small work.

Photo gallery

Stone and material

The church is built of spruce beams. The corners of the frames are joined with a simple lock with a double-sided notch, and the roofs and tops are covered with shingles. Like all the Carpathian churches on the UNESCO list, it stands on wooden sill beams above a stone foundation. The masonry sacristy is the only part where stone and brick come to the surface. The shingles here are not decoration but the building’s working skin: they take the rain and snow, and they have to be maintained regularly.

The replacement of the lower log rounds in 1895 shows how a wooden church ages: from below, from the ground and the damp. That is why the most important decision for such a building is not carving or gilding but the height and dryness of its base. It is the same in stonework: nobody photographs the plinth and the foundation, yet it is on them that it depends whether a building will survive until the next “the churchwarden raised it” inscription.

How the entrance to the sanctuary is arranged is explained in the article royal doors; small sacred volumes are in the section chapels. Another monument of Zakarpattia is the Horiany Rotunda in Uzhhorod, and another Carpathian church on the UNESCO list is the Holy Spirit Church in Rohatyn.

Did you know

Legends

Figures

• Pavlo Toniv — craftsman from Bitlia (now Lviv region), one of the two builders of 1745.
• Ivan Tsyhanyn — craftsman from Tykhyi, the second builder.
• Petro Hyrych — churchwarden who left the 1895 inscription about raising the church.
• Vasyl Havrylko — churchwarden named in another inscription from the time of the repair.
• The Drugeths — the family that held Uzhok as a hereditary possession in 1582.
• Mykhailo Manuil Olshavskyi — Greek Catholic Bishop of Mukachevo (1743–1767), under whom the 1751 visitation took place.
• Adalbert Erdélyi — Transcarpathian artist, author of the painting “Pilgrimage in Uzhok” (1920s).
• Bohumil Vavroušek — Czech researcher who published photographs of the church in 1929.
• Mykhailo Syrokhman — art historian, researcher of Transcarpathian wooden churches and their builders.
• Mykhailo Leshko — village head of Uzhok (2013–2019).
• Tomash Sopko — chief specialist of the culture department of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration (2013), who drew attention to the plastic lining.
• Ildikó Molnár — head of the cultural heritage protection department of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration (2019).
• Oleksandr Monych — spokesman of the Mukachevo eparchy of the UOC (MP) (2019).
• Ihor Hubilit, Liubomyr Vorobii — tour operator and guide who publicly raised the question of access to the monument in 2018–2019.

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