Description of the attraction
The Church of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine is located on the banks of the Neris River, in the Vilnius region of Zverinas. This white-stone church was built by the Governor-General of Vilnius A. L. Potapov, in memory of his wife Catherine, nee Princess Obolena.
Ekaterina Potapova was engaged in charitable activities during her lifetime. She helped the poor peasants with food and medicine, looked after the sick in the hospital, and visited them at home. In August 1871, she contracted cholera from a patient and died.
The Church of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine was built in 1872 near the wooden house church, which Catherine herself built next to the summer residence of Governor-General Potapov. The design of the stone church was carried out by the famous architect N. M. Chagin. He considered it expedient not to demolish the old wooden church, but to build a new one along its perimeter.
The new Orthodox church was consecrated by Archbishop Macarius himself and named after the holy Great Martyr Catherine. A memorial plate was installed on the front facade. The temple belonged to the house church "Alexander Nevsky", at the governor-general's palace. General Potapov continued to support the church even after his departure from Vilna. The manager was A. Gomolitsky, rector of the Alexander Nevsky Church. Services in the church were performed on a temple holiday and on memorable days of members of the Potapov family.
During the First World War, the palace Alexander Nevsky Church was closed. Until 1922, the Catherine Church was used as the home church of the Kalinkovs. In 1922 the church was taken over by the Church of the Sign. In 1924, when the autocephaly of the Polish Orthodox Church was proclaimed, the Moscow Patriarchate did not recognize it. It was then, with the assistance of V. V. Bogdanovich, a public and religious figure, that a religious community of the Russian Orthodox Church was created in the Catherine Church.
In 1925, the authorities closed the temple. However, the “patriarchal” Catherine parish existed secretly even after this decree. In these difficult times for the Orthodox believers in Vilnius, the Catherine Church was the only church that retained a canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate. Services were performed in the homes of parishioners Valentinovich and Korobovich. In the church itself, services and services were held for the Orthodox Church of the Polish Metropolitanate.
After World War II, the church was placed at the disposal of the Lithuanian Film Studio, which placed its warehouses in the premises of the church. After the new government came to Lithuania, the building was returned to the believers, transferring it to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The exterior of the building is simple and austere. The squat, almost square stone structure is covered with a hipped roof. In the middle of the building, in the highest part of the roof, there is a stone polygonal tower with many narrow arched windows around the circumference. Above the turret there is a dome tapering upwards, slightly protruding beyond the level of the walls. A cross is installed on the dome. The upper part of the walls under the roof is decorated with a simple stone relief pattern, which gives the heavy structure some lightness. On the front facades, there are two windows each, decorated on top with stucco molding in the form of a double arch. The corners of the building are decorated with bulky imitation of columns.
In front of the entrance to the church, a stone vestibule was built in the form of a small closed porch. The walls of the vestibule are below the level of the main wall. It is covered with a gable roof. The porch is illuminated by two small windows on the side facades. A niche is built above the massive wooden entrance door in the form of a low wide arch, decorated with stucco moldings along the perimeter.
