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Saint Sophia Cathedral, Polotsk

Saint Sophia Cathedral, Polotsk

Photo: Александр Липилин · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Polotsk, Belarus
Client / Owner
Florian Hrebnicki
Year
Completed 1750
Access
Tickets required
Style
Baroque

Prince Vseslav built the original church from 1044 to 1066. Fires in 1447 and 1643 hit it, and from 1705 to 1710 Peter the Great and Aleksandr Menshikov used it as a powder house, which later exploded. The Uniate Archbishop Florian Hrebnicki commissioned the present building in 1738, with the Warsaw master mason Błażej Kosiński.

The designer is unknown. Johann Christoph Glaubitz, Guido Antonio Longhi and Aleksander Osikiewicz have each been proposed. The infobox gives completion in 1750, while the text gives 1738 to 1765. It is an example of Vilnian Baroque. The article gives no dimensions or materials.

A restoration in 1967 began when it was to become a museum of atheism, and that museum moved to Vitebsk in 1969. It is now a concert hall with an organ, as part of the Polotsk museum-preserve.

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