Trinity Cathedral, Samar
A nine-domed 18th-century wooden cathedral without iron nails — the tallest wooden church in Ukraine.
The nine-domed wooden Trinity Cathedral in Samar (Novomoskovsk until 2024) was built by the self-taught master Yakym Pohrebniak. The sources give different years: NV 1775–1778, ZN.UA 1772–1778, uahistory.co 1772–1781. According to Radio Svoboda (2008), it was built on the commission of the Zaporozhian Cossack starshyna; the historian Taras Chukhlib (Radio Svoboda, 2005) writes that the cathedral was funded by the Zaporozhian Host together with the kosh otaman Petro Kalnyshevsky, who gave the church a Gospel book worth 600 roubles in gold. The cathedral is assembled from wooden beams without a single iron nail. In 1887–1888 it was reassembled, keeping its original appearance, and a bell tower was added; under Soviet rule it served as a warehouse — as Oles Honchar described in his novel “The Cathedral”. Restoration lasted from 2012 to 2021. Suspilne and ZN.UA give its height as over 65 m, NV as 35 m. On 15 October 2025 a court ordered the cathedral and bell tower to be registered as state property; services there are held by the UOC (MP).
The nine-domed wooden cathedral of 1772–1778 is state property; services there are held by the UOC (MP) (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, 01.11.2025). The Samar district is under strikes — on 13.09.2026 the neighbouring Chernechchyna community was attacked (Novyny Dnipra, 13.09.2026); the alarm means shelter.