Glubokoe. Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The existence of an Orthodox church in Glubokoe is documented by the Polotsk revision of 1552. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Mstislavl governor Joseph Korsak, a descendant of the Orthodox Polotsk boyars, who owned the city, under the influence of the political situation that had developed in the country at that time, accepted the union with the Roman Catholic Church. He invited monks of the Catholic Carmelite order to Glubokoe, who, under his leadership, began construction of a stone church and monastery in 1639. Soon Joseph Korsak died, and according to his will, the Glubokoe lands passed into the possession of the Carmelites. In 1654, the construction of the church was completed. More than 30 monks and about 50 clergy permanently resided in the monastery.

In 1864, for participation in the uprising of K. Kalinovsky against the tsarist government, the monastery was closed by order of the Vilnius Governor-General. The remaining monks left for the Kamenets-Podolsk Carmelite Monastery in Ukraine. The buildings of the church and monastery were transferred to the Orthodox Church. On September 3, 1878, the former Carmelite church was consecrated by Bishop Vladimir of Kovno as the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

From 1921 to 1939, when Glubokoe was part of Poland, the building of the former monastery housed the Glubokoe eldership. In 1944, during the retreat of the German troops, a fire broke out in the church, as a result of which the altar, icons and church archive were damaged. In the post-war years, the monastery building was occupied by the Glubokoe butter and cheese factory. However, the church continued to operate, although it was repeatedly threatened with closure.

The cathedral houses the icon of the Holy Mother of God “It is Truly Meet” – a copy of the miraculous icon kept in the Kareya Church on Mount Athos. The icon of the Mother of God, according to the inscription, is “a gift from some of the poorest Russian Svyatogorsk patriotic monks to the rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God in the town of Glubokoe, Lithuanian Diocese, Vilnius Province, Disna District, priest Evfimy Divolovsky with the clergy and parish for this church as an inalienable property, as a blessing from the Holy Mount Athos to this church, parishioners, worshippers and benefactors, the village and the Orthodox residents of the entire district…”. The icon was brought in June 1911 in a religious procession with the participation of numerous clergy. Over the course of 3 days, the pilgrims with the icon walked 36 miles, stopping along the way in all the populated areas.

The cathedral is also interesting for its dungeons. For several centuries, its basements served as an underground burial vault for monks, and the remains of the monastery's founder, Joseph Korsak, were also buried here. In 1831, the Carmelites supported the uprising against the tsarist government, so the dungeon became a place for storing weapons, treating the wounded, and hiding places for the rebels. During World War II, the dungeons served as a prison for prisoners of the "Russian Liberation Army of Rodionov" who fought on the side of the fascists. After the war, the dungeons housed a canning factory.

According to legend, Napoleon, who lived in the monastery for 10 days during his campaign against Moscow, said: “I regret that I cannot take it with me to Paris; the Notre Dame church would not be ashamed to have it as a neighbor.”