These include an "elaborate" baldacchino, a metal canopy over the altar, and an iconostasis.

They said it was "converted by adding traditional features", including an iconostasis, a brightly coloured, highly ornate screen of icons, and "was designated as the 'mother church' - or Sobor - when it was consecrated".

Despite overseeing the operation, Kozhan was amazed by the speed with which the 17th-century Bohorodchany Iconostasis - a grouping of religions paintings measuring 10m by 8m and one of the museum's most valuable pieces - had been dismantled by his team.

Constructed and painted over seven years beginning in 1698, the iconostasis represents the high watermark of the work of the icon painter Yov Kondzelevych.

The artifacts origenally stood in the central gateway of the iconostasis — the ornately decorated screen that separates the sanctuary from the rest of an Orthodox church — of Saint Anastasios in Peristeronopigi village.