Description of the attraction
The Church of the Holy Trinity (St. Roch) was built in 1864 according to the project of the academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts M. Sivitsky to replace the wooden church that stood in its place.
Several legends are associated with the Church of the Holy Trinity (St. Roch) on the Golden Hill in Minsk. One of the legends concerns the origin of the name Zolotaya Gorka - the place where the Church of the Holy Trinity stands. Once a terrible epidemic of a contagious disease broke out. People died so quickly that there was no time to bury them. One of the parishioners, a doctor by profession, proposed to build a church in honor of St. Roch, a Catholic saint who dedicated his life to helping patients with plague and other infectious diseases. The doctor spread out a cloak, where the parishioners began to put donations: gold coins and jewelry. As a result, a real golden slide has grown on the cloak.
The second legend tells that during a terrible epidemic of a contagious disease that raged in Minsk, one of the Catholic townspeople had a dream in which Saint Roch turned to him and said that his statue was in the temple of Bonifrathra. The statue was indeed discovered, cleaned and carried throughout Minsk in a solemn procession. Then the statue was installed in the Church of St. Roch on the Golden Hill. Since the epidemic was stopped, the statue was considered miraculous.
The first church of St. Roch was made of wood. It burned down in a great fire in 1908. In 1814, priest Khorevich received permission from the Minsk authorities to build a new stone church, but there was not enough money to implement the project. The church was finally rebuilt only in 1864.
The newly rebuilt Church of the Holy Trinity (St. Roch) became very popular and flourished. An orphanage, a school for organists was organized near it, for the first time divine services were conducted not only in Polish, but also in Russian.
The church was badly damaged during the Great Patriotic War. After the war, it stood in desolation for a long time. It was restored only in 1983, after which it was turned into a chamber music concert hall of the Belarusian State Philharmonic Society. The church was transferred to the Catholic Church in 1991, and regular services were resumed in it.
