A fire broke out in Community Number One (#1) Seventh-day Adventist Church in eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv during the night from June 21 to 22. The fire-fighters said arson was the cause.
According to Local Adventist Pastor Petr Popelishko, there was a married couple who temporarily resided in a small semi-detached utility room to look after the church building. They were sleeping and woke up only when the roof in the mail building collapsed. The neighbours had already called the fire-fighters. Soon five teams of fire-fighters arrived and by 4 a.m. the fire was put down. The roof, the whole interior and half of one of the walls of the church are destroyed completely.
The church was built in 1965 at the address 30 Artillery St. At that time it was the only SDA church in Kharkiv. Therefore It was called "Community Number One" and the believers have been very proud of it. Since then several new Adventist congregations have appeared in Kharkiv, with a population of about 2 million. But Community #1 has remained a historic SDA church in Ukraine. Many of the ministers serving in other Adventist churches as well as in the national church leadership in Ukraine started their pastoral service in Community #1.
According to the statement of the fire-fighters the cause of the fire was arson. As for the suspects, there are no particular person(s) and the Adventist community hopes that suspects will be identified in the process of investigation.
At present the local church is attended by 120 members. The majority of the congregation is elderly people, even though there are several children and quite a few young people. It is situated in a huge residential district of Kharkiv and Pastor Popelishko reports it is the only house of prayer in the area.
The church leadership’s reaction to the event was immediate: Pastor Volodymyr A. Krupskyi, the President of the Ukrainian Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church from Kyiv and Pastor S.A. Kumpen,, Secretary of the Eastern-Dneprovsk Conference arrived at the place of the accident the next day. They are considering all the possibilities to help. A plan was made. First of all, to clear the site of the church from the ruins in order to create an opportunity for architects to determine the volume of the reconstruction work. Second, to receive final legal documents of the ownership of the property by the church. Third, a construction Committee was set up with representatives from the Union, Conference and Community #1. In order to preserve the congregation of Community #1 the reconstruction of the building needs to be finished as soon as possible, hopefully by the cold season. Right now worship continues in the church yard. When the weather is bad, the congregation attends services in other churches of the city.
