The geographical position

Mogilev is a regional town in the East of Belarus.

The historical information

The date of foundation of the town is 1267. The town was named after the founder of the Mogilev castle – Lev Danilovich Mogiya. However, there is a legend that the town was named on account of the fact that there is the grave of a bogatyr in its outskirts. He died from hands of a once-beloved girl who later became the wife of a noble man. The burial hill in honor of the strongman was called “Mogila Lva”, and the surrounding territory – Mogilev.

The population

The population of Mogilev is about 378 thousand people.

St. Nicholas Monastery

One of the most famous sights of Mogilev is St. Nicholas Monastery.

The story of St. Nicholas Convent begins with the construction of a wooden temple in 1637. And a convent was established on its basis. Nine years later, the faithful people of Mogilev received a permit for the construction of an unheated stone temple. The engineering works were funded by the parishioners. The document received from the king gave the leadership of the temple the absolute right of possession of the convent and included permission to hold church fairs on holidays dedicated to St. Nicholas. The document was kept in the temple until the middle of the XIX century.

The convent existed until 1719. After that the building was transformed into a male monastery for twenty-five years, and later was closed.

During the XVII-XVIII centuries, the architectural complex of St. Nicholas Monastery was formed and later it was surrounded by a fence. There are the Temple of St. Nicholas, the Temple of St. Onuphrius, a house and a bell tower in the territory.

The Temple of St. Nicholas is built in the style of original Belarusian Baroque. The temple presents a basilica with three naves and three apses. The main feature of the temple is an onion-like dome placed on an octagonal dome drum. A special place in the inner decoration of the temple is given to an iconostasis. It has four tiers and is covered with gilding.

St. Onuphrius Temple was used for worship in winter, as the stone building of the established temple was not heated. The composition of the “warm” temple is crowned with a dome rested on a cylindrical drum. The consecration of St. Onuphrius Temple took place in March 1991. Until 1995, until the main temple was not heated, there were held important meetings of the Belarusian Orthodox Church.

The dwelling house located in the south of the fenced complex is rectangular. The one-storey building was used as a hospital in the XVII century.

There is a bell tower near the house. The two-tier bell tower is quadrangular and has a hipped roof. There are no windows on the first tier, and there are pilasters at the corners. The second tier is designed in the form of a hexagon with arched windows.

The church complex suffered the most difficult time before the war when in 1937 within the walls of the temple there was organized a prison. However, after the Great Patriotic War, the building was not immediately returned to believers. In 1946, it hosted book storage. Only since the early 1990s the restoration work was started, and although slowly, but still it led to the revival of the Orthodox sanctuary and reopening of the temple and monastery.