The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Ukraine
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful sacred places in Ukraine are Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Sviatohirsk Lavra and St Andrew's Church, Kyiv. The list covers 5 sacred places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Ukraine's sacred architecture begins with the baptism of Kyivan Rus' in 988, when Byzantine builders and mosaicists brought the art of Constantinople to the Dnieper. Monks dug their first cells into the riverbanks, giving rise to the great lavras, and centuries later Cossack patrons and Baroque architects crowned the old churches with the pear-shaped green and gold domes that now define the country's skyline.
The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, founded in 1051, spreads from underground cave passages lined with relics to the Great Lavra Bell Tower above the Dnieper. Sviatohirsk Lavra rises on white chalk cliffs over the Siverskyi Donets, with chapels carved into the rock. St Andrew's Church, designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, stands on a ridge above the Podil district. Saint Sophia Cathedral, founded under Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century, keeps its original mosaics, and the Pochaiv Lavra crowns a hill in western Ukraine with a Baroque cathedral of the 1770s.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyiv Pechersk Lavra | Lavra | ✓ |
| 2 | Sviatohirsk Lavra | Lavra | |
| 3 | St Andrew's Church, Kyiv | Church building | |
| 4 | Saint Sophia Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 5 | Pochaiv Lavra | Lavra |
01 Kyiv Pechersk Lavra
Києво-Печерська лавра
Ukraine · 3.4 km from Kyiv50.434° N 30.558° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by JamesHills from Pixabay Unlike cave shelters built purely for retreat, the tunnels here — the Near Caves and the Far Caves — evolved into a genuine underground settlement: chapels, living cells, and burial vaults side by side. The dry, low-oxygen conditions underground preserved many of the monks interred there, and their remains are still venerated within the caves, making the complex as much a living reliquary as a historic site.
Did you know? Peter Mohyla opened a monastery school in 1631; a year later it merged into the Kyiv Collegium, the forerunner of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
02 Sviatohirsk Lavra
Святогірська лавра
Ukraine · 34.4 km from Kramatorsk49.028° N 37.568° E
Image by oleg_mit from Pixabay Monastic life here is older than any building that survives. Hermits are thought to have settled in the chalk in the fifteenth century, hollowing out cells, passages and underground churches; the Holy Mountains are mentioned in 1526, and the monastery itself in a document of 1627. This was then the open steppe of the Wild Fields, and the community endured repeated raids from the south.
Did you know? Pottery from the 8th to 10th centuries found on the site shows people were here long before the monks arrived.
03 St Andrew's Church, Kyiv
Андріївська церква
Ukraine · 2.6 km from Kyiv50.459° N 30.518° E
Image by Adrian34 from Pixabay The church is compact rather than vast: about 32 metres long, 20 metres wide and some 50 metres high. A single large dome rises over the body of the church, accompanied by smaller decorative cupolas, and the whole stands on a high platform so that it seems to float above the slope. Inside, the iconostasis was also designed by Rastrelli and carved in Saint Petersburg, and more than a thousand sheets of gold leaf were used in the gilding.
Did you know? Infantry regiments from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Starodub and Poltava were put to work on the construction.
04 Saint Sophia Cathedral
Софійський собор
Ukraine · 1.9 km from Kyiv50.453° N 30.514° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Rbrechko · CC BY-SA 4.0 Its founding date is still argued over. The Primary Chronicle gives 1037, under Yaroslav the Wise; the Novgorod chronicle gives 1017; and the historian Nadiia Nikitenko, reading graffiti on the walls, argued for 1011 under his father Volodymyr — the date Ukraine adopted when it celebrated the millennium in 2011. What is clear is the ambition.
Did you know? One 12th-century graffito records Princess Maria Mstislavna buying land, a rare written deed from Kyivan Rus'.
05 Pochaiv Lavra
Почаївська лавра
Ukraine50.005° N 25.507° E
Aniskov · CC BY-SA 4.0 Its origins are wrapped in legend. The monastery is first documented in 1527, but tradition places its beginnings some three centuries earlier, in the time of the Mongol invasion, when the Mother of God is said to have appeared on the hill in a pillar of fire and left the print of her right foot in the rock. That footprint, with a spring rising beneath it, is still venerated inside the main church.
Did you know? A fire in 1869 destroyed nearly all of Luka Dolynsky's paintings for the cathedral; only four of his works survived.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful sacred places in Ukraine?
- On our list, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra ranks first, followed by Sviatohirsk Lavra and St Andrew's Church, Kyiv.
- How old is Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv?
- It was founded in the first half of the 11th century under Prince Yaroslav the Wise. Its interior keeps original mosaics and frescoes, including the great Virgin Orans in the apse.
- What are the caves of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra?
- They are narrow passages dug into the hillside by the monastery's first monks in the 11th century. The Near and Far Caves contain underground churches and the burials of venerated monks.
- Who designed St Andrew's Church in Kyiv?
- The Italian-born architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who also designed the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The church was built in the 1740s and 1750s.
- How many sacred places are on this list in Ukraine?
- The list covers 5 sacred places.