The main topic of the article is sacred, but abandoned, derelict and forgotten places. The author pays particular attention to the issue of an ontological status of a sacred ruin as a non-place and the issue of the disappearing sacredness which once defi ned abandoned architecture. A ruin is designated a non-place as a result of a phenomenological definition of a place as a point in space with a particular identity. The author tries to answer the question of whether sacral architecture can still function as a place after it has been abandoned and is no longer present in the experience of ordinary people.