Description of the attraction
The Holy Cross Cathedral of the Exaltation and the Borisoglebskaya Church are currently a single architectural complex.
Borisoglebskaya Church was built in the 17th century. It was originally built as a brick residential building, later rebuilt into a church. In the process of rebuilding the house into a church, the walls were painted with wonderful frescoes in the Belarusian folk style, however, later repairs and reconstruction of the building, unfortunately, completely destroyed the unique frescoes - they were painted over with several layers of paint.
Information about the Borisoglebsk church has been preserved in the documents of the 17th century. In 1619, all Orthodox churches in Mogilev were closed, but already in 1634, some of the churches were returned. The transfer act states that in those years there was already an ancient Orthodox Borisoglebsk monastery with the Borisoglebsk church located on its territory.
In 1637 the Borisoglebsk Monastery became the seat of the Mogilev Bishop Sylvester I of Kosov. The bishop founded a cathedral and a printing house, an almshouse, a school and a hospital in the monastery.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the wooden monastery burned down, leaving only the stone Borisoglebsk church in its place, which was later restored. In 1869, next to the small and cramped Borisoglebskaya church, a large new church was built, which was also named St. Boris and Gleb's church.
With the arrival of the Bolsheviks, both churches were closed. They were opened only during the Nazi occupation. Since 1941, the church has remained active. In 1986, the church was renamed the Holy Cross Cathedral.
