Church of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky (Minsk)

In April 1896, an estimate for a total of 11,227 rubles and 39 kopecks was approved for the construction of the memorial church by the construction department of the Minsk Provincial Government. The military cemetery , which was located on the outskirts of Minsk and was called the Long ford, was chosen as the place for construction.

For the construction of the temple in the Byzantine style, funds were also donated by the troops of the local military garrison and private individuals - mainly relatives of the dead soldiers. Archpriest Pavel Bogdanovich, Dean of the 30th Infantry Division, actively helped in this matter. 20,000 rubles for the construction of the temple were contributed by the “daughter of the Kexholm Regiment”, Maria Keksholm , a Turkish orphan who was picked up by the soldiers of the regiment in 1878 on the battlefield and raised by the regiment in the spirit of Orthodoxy.

The construction was conceived as a monument to the soldiers who gave their lives in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–78 . This is reminded of the two memorial plaques that have been preserved since then, mounted in the central nave. They are engraved with the names of 118 soldiers of the 30th artillery brigade and 119th infantry regiment of Kolomenskoye, who died during the capture of Pleven in Bulgaria . In addition, next to the temple are the graves of several war heroes of 1877–78. - Lieutenant General E.V. Zhirzhinsky , Major General I.A. Bardin, Lieutenant Colonels A.T. Dekhtyarev, V.K. Zhezhero and S.K. Abramov.

The temple was designed in the style of Russian patterns from the 17th century and was erected on the site of a small wooden church, which stood on this site.

The ceremonial consecration of the temple took place on February 2, 1898. The consecration was performed by the Reverend Simeon (Linkov) , Bishop of Minsk and Turov, in the service of the clergy of Minsk churches and in the presence of a large number of citizens.

• The remains of senior officers are buried behind the altar wall, and next to them are two mass graves with the remains of soldiers.
• The most interesting element of the church can be called a wooden portable church, which was used by the Kolomna regiment for prayers during hostilities in Turkey .
• In the temple there is a list (copy) of the shrine of White Russia - the Minsk Icon of the Mother of God , made in the XIX century.
• During the Great Patriotic War, the temple was bombed, but the bomb that broke through the dome of the temple did not explode. She stitched the central dome of the church and fell near the icon of St. Nicholas .
• When rebuilding the church, red brick was used, manufactured at a Latvian factory, which supplied its products to the Moscow Kremlin .
• In the icon case in the right aisle there is an icon of the Savior’s Not Made by Hands , the author of which, according to legend, is the famous Russian painter Nikolai Ge . The icon was donated to the temple by one of its trustees at the end of the 19th century.

Divine services are held daily in the morning and evening, except Monday evening. The beginning of the morning service at 09:00, evening - at 18:00. On Sunday morning there are two services - at 07:00 and at 10:00.

The sacraments of baptism and weddings are regularly performed in the temple, there is a choir of its own, and Sunday school operates.

From the moment of consecration of the temple to the present time four times a year on Ecumenical Saturdays, memorial services are held here, in which the dead soldiers are called by name.

• Temple history