After the victory of Ukrainian singer Jamala in Eurovision Kiev is getting ready to accept the singing contest. After completion of a work group creation into which came representatives of the European broadcasting union, Ukrainian National TV Company, Kiev City State Administration as well as representatives of Stockholm who accepted the contest in 2016, its first decision that stroke many people was announced: a ceremony of opening of ‘Eurovision 2017’ will take place on the territory of National resort complex ‘Sophia Kievskaya’.

This decision of local powers evoked many outrage not of Kiev citizens only but of all Ukrainians as well. The matter is that the famous Kiev St. Sophia’s cathedral was built in the center of Kiev in the first half of XI century as an orthodox temple. And though now it has a status of a museum, Ukrainians still take it as a religious sanctuary.

Temples and any other sacral places should be apart, and talk shows and business apart from them as well. That’s how the capital’s citizens think. These things shouldn’t be mixed anyway. No matter what official status according to the Ukrainian law the ‘Sophia Kievskaya’ complex would bear today in 2016 (formally it is a museum), it is considered to be one of significant sanctuaries of Kiev Rus that is important not only to Ukrainians, but to other orthodox believers of Moscow Patriarchy. And the intentions are really a direct insult of many orthodox people and a challenge for them.

 

The brightest example is when in a temple a show was made – the so called ‘punk-prayer’ of Pussy Riot band in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in 2012. Surely, the ‘Eurovision’ and the performance of these girls are actions of a different level, but the principle here is the same – dances near the altar, show near a shrine. Nothing good will come out of it.