Description of the attraction
The Peter and Paul Cathedral, which is located in Lugansk, is one of two Orthodox churches that the Bolsheviks were able to survive. It is located at the 2nd Cooperative Lane, 10a. According to documentary evidence, in the very place where the cathedral now stands, in 1761, with the blessing of His Grace Iosaph (Matkevich), who was Bishop of Belgorod and Oboyansk, a wooden church was built in honor of Saints Peter and Paul.
Thirty years later, the building was badly dilapidated and in October 1795 it was overhauled and completely rebuilt. A stone cathedral with a huge bell tower was built, it contained seven bells and many icons. In connection with the anti-religious war that unfolded after the 1917 revolution, many churches in the Luhansk region were destroyed, but the Peter and Paul Cathedral was much more fortunate in this regard. In 1929, they decided to give the building of the cathedral as a school, but soon changed their minds and instead opened a cinema in the cathedral, which bore the symbolic name “Atheist”. The temple was completely plundered, the iconostasis was dismantled, all the domes and bells were removed, the frescoes were thickly whitewashed. But the building itself remained intact, it was not blown up, unlike many other temples in the city.
During the Great Patriotic War in 1942, the Peter and Paul Cathedral again opened its doors to all believers. Since then, the cathedral was never closed again, despite the struggle with the believers and the church, which continued for a very long time.
At the moment, the rector of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is Archpriest Vasily Somik. In 2011, the Lugansk Peter and Paul Cathedral celebrated its 250th anniversary.
