The Saint Elijah Church, situated in Podol district of Kyiv, is the first
Russian Orthodox church ever built. According to legend, it was built by the Prince Askold and
Dir long before the baptizing of Kyiv Rus. The Saint chronicler Nestor writes
about this event in his Fable of Ancient Times.
In 988 The Great equel to Apostle Prince Vladimir began baptizing the people of
Kyiv Rus near this church on the banks of the Dnieper River.
And now this church, though small in size is under jurisdiction of the
Metropolitan of Kyiv and the whole Ukraine Vladimir is a favourite place for
praying for the Kyivites. Archiepriest Vitaly Kosovskiy is the dean of the
church since 1991.
On the 19th of December 1996 the childrens choir began to sing for the
glory of God.
The children regularly take part in Sunday and festive liturgies and has become
an integral part of ther life. The choir also has consert activities. During the
short time of its existence, the choir won the All-Ukranian (1997, the town of Rivne)
and International (1998, the town of Eupatoria) festivals.
In this album you can hear both little-known old spiritual songs of the 16-17th
centuries and traditional and authors spirituel hymns of liturgies of the 18th
beginning of the 20th centuries.
Special attention should be paid to old Ukranian cantical part of the album
where warm feelings of Ukranian people to God are particularly expressed.
The choir has become the first Orthodox childrens choir of
Kyiv after almost a one hundred years interval.