SAVING UKRAINE'S SACRED ART

A 300-year-old masterpiece has withstood religious persecution and world wars. Can it survive Russia's brutal assault?

-  Joshua Hammer

I ARRIVED IN LVIV on a cold, clear morning in March, four weeks after the Russian invasion. A jewel of cobblestone alleys, Hapsburg-era palaces and squares, and churches dating to the Middle Ages, western Ukraine's largest city possessed a veneer of calm. But as I strolled in Rynok Square, an air-raid siren shattered the hubbub of street musicians and café-goers, sending many pedestrians scurrying into shelters. On this day no attack came.

The Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv had been closed since the first day of the war. By a side entrance of the opulent former villa, I met Ihor Kozhan, its director. A short, burly man in his late sixties with a kindly visage, Kozhan led me through the museum's deserted atrium and into an exhibition hall that had been stripped bare. "This room was filled with religious icons," he told me, pointing out many rows of white display cabinets, now containing nothing more than bare brass mounts.

On February 24, Kozhan awakened to the news of the Russian invasion. "Western countries had been claiming that troops were massing, but our government insisted that nothing was going to happen," he told me as we strolled through empty galleries. "We had no plan." Blindsided, Kozhan told his wife and daughter to stay safe, then he steeled himself and went to work.

His first decision, a difficult one, was to close the museum. Then Kozhan and his employees met to formulate a strategy to protect its 1,800 objects on display-Ukrainian modern art, illuminated manuscripts and sacred icons spanning 800 years. Kozhan was particularly concerned about the pride of the collection, regarded by many scholars as the greatest example of Baroque-era religious art in central Europe: the Bohorodchany Iconostasis.