Local crews first
Every hryvnia of labour we can spend in the region, we spend in the region. Masons, roofers and conservators are hired on the ground, at local rates, with contracts published.
Rebuild · 2022—2026
Charitable foundation · Kyiv · since 2022
Rebuild the walls.
Keep the light.
Svitlo restores Orthodox churches damaged by Russia’s war on Ukraine — stone by stone, with the parishes and crews who refuse to leave.
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$893,245
raised for reconstruction
27
churches under care
9
regions across Ukraine
5,132
donors since 2022
The work
A church is not a ruin.
It is a schedule.
Since February 2022, hundreds of religious buildings across Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed. We work on the ones where a parish is still there, the roof can still be saved, and every hryvnia can be accounted for.
Our teams survey, procure, build and sign off — then publish the file. No appeals without a scope. No scope without an engineer. No invoice without a photograph.
How the foundation works
14
sites completed
and signed off
and signed off
Procurement in the open
Materials above ₴50,000 go through ProZorro or a public three-quote process. Invoices, acts and completion photos are attached to each project file.
The church and the street
A rebuilt church is a shelter, a kitchen, a rehearsal room and a bomb shelter before it is a monument. We fund the building and the services that keep it alive.
Document everything
Condition survey before, photogrammetry during, independent sign-off after. If we cannot show it, we did not do it.
Open files
Six sites. One winter ahead.
Each project is costed, surveyed and published. Pick one and follow it to completion.
All projects
In reconstruction
Odesa · Odesa oblast
Transfiguration Cathedral
Phase II — dome, lantern and glazing
$267,890
of $480,000
In reconstruction
Kharkiv · Kharkiv oblast
Dormition Cathedral
Heating, glazing and structural stabilisation
$197,335
of $260,000
In reconstruction
Sviatohirsk · Donetsk oblast
Sviatohirsk Lavra
Refectory and pilgrim hostel
$139,425
of $320,000
88.4%to the sites
Direct works & materials
88%
Logistics & site supervision
7%
Administration
5%
Where the money goes
Eighty-eight cents
of every dollar reaches the site.
Materials, masons, roofers, conservators. The rest pays for the scaffolding to get there, the engineer who signs it off, and three people in Kyiv who keep the ledger clean.
Based on the audited 2025 accounts. Full statement on the transparency page.
The record
Real damage. Real drawings.
Photographs taken at the sites after the strikes, and the plans we survey from. No renders, no stock imagery, no invented buildings.
Open the archive
From the field
“People ask whether we are rebuilding a building or a congregation. In Sviatohirsk the answer is the same thing: the kitchen is the church, and the roof is the kitchen.”
Svitlo was founded in Kyiv in April 2022 by four restorers and a parish priest. We have stayed small on purpose: twenty-seven sites is already more than we can photograph in a week.
Read the foundation’s storyField notes
From the sites
Progress, delays and the things that did not go to plan.
All notes
Odesa: the dome is closed before winter
Eighteen months after the strike, the last sheet of the temporary dome cover came off this week. What is underneath is dry, surveyed and ready for co…
Read
Kharkiv: heat back in the lower church
The modular boiler went in on Friday. By Sunday the lower church was at 19°C and the kitchen was serving 300 meals a day again.
Read
Three years since the strike on the Transfiguration
A dated record of what the missile did inside the cathedral, and what has been put back since.
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