Horrible!!

I have a similar story. In the 1880's the small, fur seal trade town of Belkofski, Alaska built a magnificent Russian Orthodox church. The townspeople, mostly Aleuts, poured a lot of money into the beautiful iconastasis that separated the holy of the holies from the rest of the church. Well long story-short, the fur seal trade died (the morality of which can be debated but for the purpose of this story I will ignore), and with it the town of Belkofski in the mid-1900's.

The last few residents of Belkofski (the Bear family) left in 1995 and moved to the nearby cannery town of King Cove around the peninsula, but the church remained (Church of the Holy Ascension). A few years later the elders decided to "rescue" the beautiful paintings and relics from the old church.

Though it had been declared a National Historical Landmark, they could not find assistance to save and preserve their history. So, they set out in fishing boats and made the trip back to Belkofski with chainsaws in hand. They gutted the old church, stripping it of its support and loaded their vessels with all they could carry. The church of the Holy Ascension collapsed a couple years later in a wind storm. The paintings and relics were taken to King Cove and a new church was built (St. Hermans').

Many of the icons were lost or destroyed in the hasty removal, but to give you an idea of how gorgeous the Belkofski once was here is a photo of what remains at St. Hermans':

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collecti...097c/resource/

The original Belkoski church:

http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/singleit...id/2675/rec/10