St. Nicholas Monastery Complex

St. Nicholas Monastery was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List as one of the most precious monuments of Baroque architecture in Europe. This is a really interesting place and it will not leave anyone indifferent.

The monastery construction started in the 17th century when Peter, the Metropolitan of Kiev, got permission of the Polish king Wladyslaw IV to build St Nicholas Church in Mogilev. First a temporary wooden church was built. The construction of the stone building began in 1669, and in 1672 the church was ready and blessed.

The monastery has a very complicated destiny. In the 18th century it was attacked by the Swedes, later by the Russian army. Peter I was not happy about the fact that citizens of Mogilev gave the Swedes food and money, so he ordered to burn down Mogilev. The monastery was also set on fire and suffered considerably. In 1719 the last nuns moved to Barkolabovsky Monastery. At the same time the fratry began functioning. It remained here till 1954. Then up to the thirties of the 20th century the monastery functioned as a church.

It is known that from August 1915 to November 1917 there was General Headquarters of the Russian army in Mogilev, so the emperor Nicholas II visited the church with his big family. They say that in the summer of 2000, when Nicholas II was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, a portrait of the emperor was miraculously found in Mogilev. The portrait was blessed as an icon. A five-ruble coin is attached to this portrait — they say that Nicholas gave this coin to a boy called Semion Khalipov during his visit to the church.

St. Nicholas Church complex did not avoid persecution during the Soviet times. The church ware was taken away and the icon-stand was destroyed. In 1937 Mogilev diocese stopped functioning. The monastery was turned into a transit prison, which was closed when World War II began. In 1991 during restoration work in the monastery a lot of human remains were found. They are supposed to belong to the victims of Stalin’s repression.

After the war, in 1946, a book center was opened here. And inly in the nineties of the 20th century restoration of this sacred place began.

There are quite a few famous icons in the monastery. On the 6th of August every year Cross Procession takes place. Today there is a Sunday school for children and a choir here.

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