Belarus in Faces (part LXIX). Беларусь у тварах (частка LXIX).
This guide’s beautiful Belarusian language caught my ear as she held her student group in rapt attention on their tour through St. Sofia cathedral.
St. Sofia, some of whose original mid-11th century foundations have been conserved, became a jewel of the Greek Catholic church during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1705 Russian Czar Peter the Great murdered six Greek catholic priests in St. Sofia; in 1710 Russian troops destroyed the old church. Today, the building, rebuilt in the mid-18th century as a masterpiece of the Vilnius Baroque style, is a museum and concert hall. The ecclesiastical status of the cathedral remains in limbo as the authorities avoid adjudicating between the revived Greek Catholic church and the Orthodox church, which took over the cathedral after the Russian Empire repressed the Greek Catholics.
Cathedral of St. Sofia, Polatsak 2012. Сафійскі сабор, Полацак 2012 год.
