Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Cross (Uzhhorod)

The Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Cross stands in the very heart of Uzhhorod, on the square of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and the eparchy calls it the city's calling card¹. The cathedral belongs to the Mukachevo eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: the Uzhhorod city deanery has seventeen churches and thirty-one clergy, and nine of them serve here².

The cathedral keeps a second patronal feast on 24 May, the day of Saints Cyril and Methodius - for the very first church of the cathedral was built in their honour³. On that day the clergy serve a moleben on the square that bears their name, and the community walks there in procession every year³. The chapel of Saints Cyril and Methodius stands on the same spot: in 2017 a new gilded cupola three metres high, with its cross, was raised onto it, and the repaired chapel and its new iconostasis were consecrated¹. On weekdays services are held in the chapel at 7:30 in the morning and at 17:00 in the evening, and through the day it stands open, so that anyone may come in to pray or light a candle¹.

A Sunday school works at the cathedral: its children perform verses and hymns for the feast of St Nicholas together with the children of the eparchy's other cathedrals⁴. For the Day of the Protection of Children the cathedral, together with a centre for the care of motherhood, family and orphaned children, holds a children's art festival, "Colours of Childhood", and it gathers dozens of children⁵. Before Pascha the clergy of the deanery, the cathedral among them, take Paschal gifts round the social institutions of the city - a rehabilitation centre, a family-type home and the territorial centre for elderly people⁶. The cathedral choir has published fifteen Christmas hymns of the local Carpathian chant, in arrangements by its own singers, freely available⁷.

The eparchy itself publishes the order of the great services: at Pascha the festal Matins at midnight, the Divine Liturgy at one in the morning and a second festal liturgy at ten⁸. The cathedral's own channel carries live broadcasts of its services⁹.