Cabinet of Ministers allocates over 17 million UAH to celebrate 1000th anniversary of St. Sophia Cathedral and to restore St. Andrew’s Church

The Cabinet of Ministers has allocated to the Ministry of Culture 17.45 million UAH to organize events to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of St. Sophia Cathedral and to repair and restore St. Andrew's Church in Kyiv, Korespondent reports.

The Ministry of Culture is commissioned to coordinate the transfer of budget allocations with the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Budget, and the Ministry of Finance is to start, if necessary, a new budget program and make necessary amendments to the state budget.

We remind that in September 2010, the Cabinet of Ministers set up an organizing committee to prepare for and celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the founding of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.

Later in February, the government allocated 17 million UAH to celebrate and reconstruct St. Andrew's church, but in March came another decree, which annulled the first document, and the money actually went toward the reconstruction of the Kyiv Cave Monastery.

As was reported earlier, on June 12, President Yanukovych signed decree № 682/2010 to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 2011.

Meanwhile, senior fellow at the Institute of Ukrainian History Oleksiy Tolochko insisted that the cathedral was built between the years 1017-1037 by Prince Yaroslav the Wise.

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In February 2010, the St. Sophia Cathedral National Reserve announced that St. Sophia Cathedral was founded by Prince Volodymyr the Great and not by Prince Yaroslav the Wise.

In particular, academics that work at the reserve suggest that the cathedral was founded and almost completed by Prince Volodymyr in the years 1011-1015, and completed by his son Yaroslav in 1018.

The Soviet and post-Soviet historiography was dominated by the hypothesis that Prince Yaroslav founded the cathedral in 1037.