Baranovichi. Pokrovsky Cathedral.

In 1908, a wooden Orthodox church was built on the site of the current cathedral in Baranovichi. The wooden church did not last long and burned down in 1921 on the night of April 19 (May 2, new style), after the festive evening of the first day of Easter. In the morning, the entire Orthodox congregation of the city gathered at the ashes. The parish decided to restore its church. A committee for the construction of a new church was created, headed by Senator of the Polish Sejm Alexei Nazarevsky, Archpriest Pavel Matskevich and Church Warden Yarotsky. For two years, the Polish authorities of the Nowogródek Voivodeship did not sign the project for the construction of the church, which they initially wanted to restore from wood. Then the commission, with the support of Archbishop Dionysius, decided to build a stone church.

The new project was developed by Warsaw architect Nikolai Obolonsky. The construction of the church was estimated at 147 thousand zlotys (for example, a pood of rye then cost about 2 zlotys). On August 6, 1924, the temple was laid by Bishop Alexander of Polesie and Pinsk in the presence of local authorities, a military garrison with an orchestra and a multi-thousand community of Orthodox and non-believers. From 1925 to 1928, city residents collected 36 thousand zlotys for the new temple. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Nazarevsky, elected in Baranovichi from the Belarusian bloc, the Polish government allocated 58 thousand for the construction of the church for three years. The Baranovichi city magistrate found another 8,000 for the construction of the temple. Four years after the start of construction, on November 20, 1928, the domes were ceremoniously installed on the temple. Later, until 1931, work was carried out in the center of the church, iconostases were decorated, mosaics brought from Warsaw were laid out. On August 23, 1928, Metropolitan Dionysius transferred to Baranovichi an iconostasis from the former house church of the Warsaw Royal Castle: 4 icons on zinc, 7 double oak doors, 40 fragments of mosaics and 13 boxes with plaster paintings - all that remained from the demolished Warsaw Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky. 30 fragments of mosaics were collected in 4 panels and placed on the inner and outer walls of the Baranovichi church. Another 10 fragments are still lying in the basements of the temple, since it is impossible to get a complete picture of them.

On October 4, 1931, the Baranovichi Cathedral of the Intercession of the Holy Mother of God was consecrated by Archbishop Alexy of Grodno and Novogrudok, and since 1949 it has long remained the only functioning Orthodox church in the city. In 1953, the church was included in the list of architectural monuments and taken under state protection.

The main attraction of the temple is the mosaics that decorate the outer and inner walls. These mosaics, assembled from the cartoons of famous Russian artists in the St. Petersburg workshop of V. Frolov at the beginning of the last century, are part of the magnificent decoration of Warsaw's Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, consecrated in 1912. They were saved during the demolition of this temple, carried out by decision of the Polish government in the 1920s, and were used in the construction of the Holy Protection Church in Baranovichi.

The interior of the church contained fragments of the composition by V.M. Vasnetsov "O tebestuetsya...", the images "St. Joseph of Volotsk" and "St. Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow" (both mosaics by the artist V.I. Dumitrashko), the compositions "Great Deesis with the Standing" (artist N.A. Koshelev) and "The Virgin Mary with the Ranks of Angels" (artist N.A. Bruni). The outside of the church is decorated with mosaic compositions by the artists N. Bruni "Cathedral of Archangel Michael" and N. Koshelev "The Savior with the Donor (Ktitor)".