Pastor Roman Galadza could only watch helplessly as the Brampton church he’s led his parish out of for two decades was reduced to ashes.

More than 17 fire trucks responded to a two-alarm blaze that completely destroyed St. Elias the Prophet Ukrainian Catholic Church on Heritage Rd., near Bovaird Dr. W., at about 7 a.m. Saturday.

Within two and a half hours, all that remained was a charred, smoking skeleton of the church’s distinct architecture, only its main posts still standing.

“It feels like a death in the family,” Galadza, the community’s pastor since 1976, said from his home about 200 metres away. “It was beautiful. It was heaven on earth.”

The church was built in 1995 out of Douglas Fir heavy timber with three dome-like structures, modeled on western Ukrainian Boyko-style churches. Intricate paintings of religious icons graced the domed ceiling and the wall behind the altar.

It cost $2 million to build the structure, excluding its inner furnishings, Galadza said, money raised from donations over 25 years.

“The walls can always be replaced,” he said. “My biggest concern is everybody is alive and well.”

Only a caretaker was in the building at the time and he escaped when the fire alarm sounded, Galadza said.

“Everybody’s sad but we’re already planning for (Sunday’s) service,” he said, adding they’re hoping to use a local Catholic school for the time being.

He said it appears the fire started in the altar area, as that’s where the flames were first visible.

“We’re usually very, very, very careful about lights and such,” he said.

When asked if anyone in the congregation may be worried the blaze was related to the conflict in Ukraine, Galadza said, “Absolutely not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

He said the Brampton fire department and Ontario Fire Marshal’s office had told him arson was not the cause of the fire.

“We had a service last night and obviously something was left behind,” he said.

Brampton Fire spokespeople had little information about the circumstances surrounding the blaze as the investigation continued.

The Brampton Professional Fire Fighters Association noted the absence of nearby hydrants and said high winds fuelled the flames.

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“Winds and construction played a big part of it,” said acting Platoon Chief Peter File. “It wouldn’t have mattered if there were hydrants nearby.”

Fire crews relied on water from a nearby pond to fight the fire before having to truck in water.

“There’s a pond near the back of it but they couldn’t get water out of it for very long,” said File.

According to File, because of the wood construction, firefighters would have had to arrive at the scene as soon as the fire started in order to have saved any of the church.

Roman Drobot said he and his family regularly attended the church since moving to Canada from Ukraine in 2001 when he was 5 years old.

“It really felt like home,” he said. “We moved to a different country, different language, different society, but at least we had that one part that held us and really tied us back to the culture back in the old country.”

Most of the congregation was Ukrainian, he said, with a few Russian-Canadian families. The church attracted about 150 people each Sunday and on Christmas and Easter, a line would form as hundreds waited to get inside, Drobot said.

“Everybody knows each other almost like family,” he said. “It feels like a part of the community has been lost.”

He said donations from the congregation funded the building’s construction in imitation of traditional Ukrainian churches.

“That was really its downfall at the end, because it was wood that brought it down to the ground,” Drobot said.

A few dozen parishioners came to Galadza’s house to attend a service mourning the loss of the church. The theme of the service was “the lord giveth and the lord taketh away,” said Karl Toews, who was married at the church in 2001 and has since attended once or twice every week.

“The church really is the congregation and the people,” he said. “We lost the building today. We didn’t lose our church.”

Meanwhile, local politicians took to Twitter to express their condolences.

Brampton mayor Susan Fennell posted a photo of the gutted church, adding, “Say a prayer this morning, for our Ukranian family as fire totally destroyed St.Elias Church. I am deeply saddened.”

Former Brampton MPP Linda Jeffrey, who is running to be mayor of Brampton, tweeted an older photo of the church, saying, “Glad nobody was hurt, but fire at St. Elias the Prophet Ukrainian Catholic Church is a loss for all of Brampton.”

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