Today Bykhov is a small town, a district center in Mogilev region. And once it was a major urban center. In the XVI-XVII centuries, high quality masters made guns and bullets there, the Bykhov weapon school was famous throughout the world; at different times, the town was a private property of the prince of Lithuania Svidrigaylo, and the chancellor of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Lev Sapega. In the early XVIII century, Peter the First stayed there; the Bykhov Castle of the XVII century has partially survived. And that's not all the town can be proud of. There is also a small temple in Bykhov. It is connected with absolutely amazing stories.

Few wooden temples have survived in the Belarusian Pridneprovie

One of the survived monuments of wooden architecture is the Temple of the Holy Trinity. The temple appeared in the town literally in the middle of the housing area in the late XIX century. The construction was started in 1890 and lasted a decade. The temple was twice consecrated, the information about the first consecration has not survived, but for the second time the “baptism” of the temple took place in 1967.

In architectural terms, the Temple of the Holy Trinity in Bykhov is a cross-shaped composition made on the plastered brick foundation. The eastern side of the temple is decorated with two small vestries covered with pent roofs. The altar is five-sided.

Nowadays the senior priest of the temple is Archpriest Nikolay; there are a clergy house, a Sunday school, and a library at the Temple of the Holy Trinity; the sisterhood functions here. The vestibule and the pews (place in the vestibule for women with children) are combined into a single area. There is an octagonal two-tier belfry above the entry to the temple. The belfry is crowned with a faceted dome. An octagonal dome drum is erected over 12 meters high above the crossing (the point of intersection of a main nave and a transept, forming a cross).

The structure has three entrances, each of which is complemented by a wide porch made of stone and two columns covered with canopies. The walls are covered vertically with planed boards.

There is a legend about the icon of the Mother of God of Barkolabovo associated with the temple in Bykhov

The history of the Temple of the Holy Trinity will forever remember the summer of 1654. The fact is that the war between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the tsarist Russia began at the time, and Prince Pozharsky who led the Russian soldiers, entering the princely lands, found there an icon of the Mother of God. Since then the war leader did not leave the icon and always took it when going to battle. It is believed that the miraculous image helped the prince every time.

At the end of the war, the prince was going to take the icon with him. The army had to return to Moscow through the Mogilev land. The road was around Bykhov where there was the Barkolabovo Convent of the Ascension. The prince's carriage with the icon suddenly stopped right at its gate. Despite the efforts of the horses and servants, the carriage did not move a single meter.

Then the prince went into the convent to the then mother superior Fotiniya Kirkirovna and left the icon of Barkolabovo in her hands, saying “the Mother of God wants to stay here”. Sisters of the convent installed the relic in the middle of the temple, deciding to choose the proper place for it the next morning. When they returned the next day, the miraculous icon of the Mother of God was at the wall, on the right next to the iconostasis. So it happened that the icon itself had found its place in the convent. The icon remained there until 1917 when the monastery was closed.

During the war, the icon appeared in the temple of Bykhov where it is still kept.