Mogilev. Holy Intercession Church.

The new stone church, the ancestor of the modern Holy Intercession Church, began to be built in 1668, and the side walls were finally completed in 1687. From 1696 to 1698, a belfry was built, in the lower tier of which a warm "winter" church was built. A large number of documents about the life of the temples of our city were lost as a result of wars and fires. But even the preserved archival records allow us to trace the stages of the life of the temple and its parishioners.

The name of the church at that time was - Pokrovskaya (Intercession). In the 20-30s of the XX century, the Intercession Church was the only one operating in Mogilev. Until 1936, the Cathedral of the Intercession housed the pulpit of Archbishop Pavlin of Mogilev, the future hieromartyr. Since his arrest in 1936, the church has been closed. 

Artists have left us invaluable information about how the church looked at that time: Napoleon Orda in 1878, Dmitry Strukov in 1867, Maria Nevronskaya from Mogilev in 1855, and Franz Eichhorst, an artist from Nazi Germany in 1941. A unique and very good quality photo of the Church of the Intercession was found in one of the personal photo albums belonging to the family of Emperor Nicholas II. All these archival finds were very helpful in the revival of the temple.

And it looked like this: rectangular in plan, cross-domed, in the eastern part, ending in three semi-cylindrical aspids and, in the western part, a vestibule and two sacristy on the sides of the main volume. An octagonal drum rose above the middle cross, covered with a spherical dome with a bulbous head on a high octagonal neck. The ends of the main volume and the wings of the transepts were completed with triangular pediments with semicircular niches in the center. The corners of the volumes and the walls of the sacristy were decorated with pilasters. The window openings had a semicircular shape. The perimeter of the building was surrounded by thin-profile cornices. In the interior, four massive pillars supported the dome drum.

Now the Holy Intercession Church is a real decoration of Podnikolye park. 

Snow-white with baroque domes pointing into the blue sky, it looks majestic and solemn. There is a beautiful fence with a cast-iron box around the church. The belfry sparkles with solemn whiteness. 

The interior of the temple is magnificent: white marble, high domed round ceiling, stairs with wrought iron railings and whiteness on all sides.

The newly rebuilt church belongs to the Baroque style with elements of classicism. There is peace and tranquility inside. Some of the icons were donated to the church by the St. Nicholas Convent, located 400 m from the Holy Intercession Church. There are icons that were presented to the church by parishioners.

In the 17th century, when Mogilev was the richest city in Belarus, the Mogilev school of architecture and the Mogilev school of painting were formed here. In Mogilev, 4 churches are being built in the style of the Mogilev school of doylism, including the Pokrovsky church. The Pokrovsky church was built on the Pokrovsky post on the banks of the Dnieper in the second half of the 17th century. The interior of the church was decorated with fresco paintings. The bell tower of Archangel Michael was built next to the church. There was Pokrovskaya street near the church. Already during the Soviet era, in the 1930s, Bishop Pavlin (late Peter Kroshachkin) served in this church. The church was badly damaged during the war and demolished in the 1950s. Then in 2014, after archaeological research, the restoration of the temple began. The church was restored in the style of classicism with elements of the Mogilev pre-modernist school and consecrated in recent years.