Minsk, the capital of Belarus, a metropolis of two million people, a giant monument to socialist realism, was supposed to be a city without God or temples. Despite this, the magnificent Baroque towers of the Archcathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary have been rising in the city centre for nearly thirty years, as they used to. Recovered and rebuilt with great difficulty, the church once again serves the Catholic community. Once the city's most magnificent church, after several decades it is once again an architectural landmark and a significant centre of spiritual life. During church holidays, even those falling on weekdays, it is filled with people praying in Belarusian and Polish.

Creation of the temple

Hieronim Władysław Sanguszko (1611-1657), suffragan of Vilnius and later Ordinary of Smolensk, brought the Jesuits to Minsk in the middle of the 17th century. At the end of the 17th century, a complex of three brick buildings began to appear on the western frontage of the High Market.

In 1699 a two-storey building of the Jesuit school was erected. The ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for the church took place a year later, and ten years later, on 16 March 1710, the consecration of the Church of Jesus, Mary and St Barbara was carried out by the Bishop of Vilnius, Konstantin Brzostowski (1644-1722). The result was a three-nave basilica with a barrel vault supported by six columns with Corinthian capitals and a presbytery closed with a semicircular apse, as well as two side chapels , the Holy Trinity and St Felician, topped with domes. On the façade, the deep semi-circular recesses of the two quadrilateral towers contain wooden statues of Saints Peter and Paul, and the pediment was decorated with a statue of Mary and Child. The construction of the college building with its characteristic clock tower in 1747 completed the Jesuit ensemble.

After the dissolution of the Order in 1773, the Minsk temple became a parish church and, with the creation (by a decree of Catherine II approved by the Holy See) of the Minsk diocese, on 28 April 1798 . - the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary . The first Bishop of Minsk was Vilnius Canon Jakub Ignacy Dederko (1751-1829) , who renovated the post-Jesuit church after a fire.

The church's interiors were decorated with Baroque-classical frescoes by Kazimierz Antoszewski (active in the last two decades of the 18th century and at the beginning of the next century), paintings by the painters Szymon Czechowicz (1689-1775 ) and Józef Oleszkiewicz (1777-1830) , and sculptures depicting the twelve apostles.

The building of the post-Jesuit school , originally housing a six-class secular school, was the residence of Minsk's governor from the late 18th century, while after the Bolshevik coup it became the seat of the first government of Soviet Belarus.

In Soviet Belarus

Abolished by tsarist decree in 1869, the diocese was briefly revived in 1917 as a consequence of the relaxation of the course towards the Catholic Church in the Russian Empire after the 1905 and February 1917 revolutions. The former pastor of the Minsk diocese, Fr Zygmunt Lozinski (1870-1932), was appointed Ordinary of the Minsk diocese. During the Polish-Bolshevik war, as a result of the offensive of the Polish Army, on 8 August 1919. Minsk found itself in Polish hands. On this occasion, on 19 September, the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief , Jozef Pilsudski , arrived at the cathedral . A solemn mass was celebrated by Bishop Zygmunt Łoziński. A year later, the hierarch was arrested by the Soviet authorities on charges of counter-revolutionary activity and imprisoned in a Minsk prison and then in Butyrki in Moscow.

The ruthless struggle against the Catholic Church did not bypass the building either. The cathedral was closed in 1934. , sharing the fate of Minsk's other Catholic churches. During the Second World War, during the German occupation, the church was active for a while , the architectural ensemble of the Jesuits, however, was partially destroyed . After the war, in 1948, the church was handed over to the "Spartak" sports society, which transformed the temple into the House of Physical Culture . In 1951, the building underwent a complete reconstruction: the towers were demolished, a new social-realist façade was added, the interior was stripped of its decoration and the ceilings were divided into three storeys. To the casual passer-by, it looked nothing like a church. The remains of the former college were also demolished and replaced by a residential building. After several years, the governor's house was completely rebuilt and a music school was placed there. In the 1980s, the church building was even given state legal protection as an architectural monument. The Ministry of Culture of the Belarusian SSR began to draw up a restoration project. However, the intention was not to restore the church's sacred functions, but to house a concert hall.

The struggle to recover the church

On the wave of perestroika, the revival of the Belarusian Church and its ecclesiastical hierarchy began. In July 1989, Pope John Paul II appointed Father Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (1946-) apostolic administrator for Catholics in Belarus. In 1991, Fr Kazimierz Świątek (1914-2011) was appointed metropolitan of the newly created Minsk-Mohylev Archdiocese, three years later elevated to the dignity of cardinal.

After the faithful recovered the Minsk Church of Saints Simon and Helen in 1990, Fr. After the faithful reclaimed the Minsk Church of Saints Simon and Helen, known as the Red Church, in 1990, the next step was to apply for the return of the cathedral. For two years, several dozen believers gathered in the street in front of the former temple building. The parish priest of the "red church", Father Władysław Zawalniuk, held masses on the steps outside the building, sometimes interrupted by police interventions. Initially, it was possible to reclaim the room on the top floor, under the very ceiling. The first services were held there. Finally, by the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus of 9 December 1993, the Minsk Cathedral building was returned to the faithful . Before the troublesome tenants were dealt with, it happened that young people in gym clothes ran into a group of worshippers.

Revival of the cathedral

The temple was consecrated on 5 February 1994. A 4-metre high cross was erected on the façade and Cardinal Kazimierz Świątek celebrated a solemn mass inside. Fr Jan Szutkiewicz (1932-2017), who already had experience of raising the church in Postawy from the ruins, was soon appointed parish priest. Thorough restoration works to restore the temple to its original shape began. They were carried out by the Zamojskie Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków "Rehabit" (Zamojskie Monuments Conservation Workshop) under the leadership of architect Wiktor Wilk (1949-2016) , in cooperation with the Belarusian Monuments Protection Committee. There followed a difficult reconstruction period lasting more than three years.

The solemn reconsecration of the renovated archcathedral took place on 21 October 1997. Work on the restoration of the interior continued. The paintings were restored, first over the chancel and in the side aisles, then in the nave. Their fragments were fortunately preserved in the chapels. The main altar with the wooden sculptures of the holy apostles Peter and Paul was reconstructed. A painting of the "Name of Mary Immaculately Conceived", donated to the cathedral by Pope John Paul II, was placed in it. Cardinal Świątek crowned the painting on 10 December 2005. The main altar and the new organ (a gift of the Austrian Episcopate) were then consecrated. This was the culmination of a major phase of work. Four bells were hung in the church tower: the largest one of Our Lady of Budslav, a medium-sized bell in honour of John Paul II and the Servant of God Bishop Zygmunt Lozinski. Zygmunt Łoziński, and a smaller one in honour of the Synod of Belarus.

On 10 November 2007, Minsk's archcathedral hosted the solemn ingress of Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusievicz , who, after 16 years' service in Moscow, returned to Belarus to become Metropolitan of Minsk-Mahilyow , replacing the aged Cardinal Świątek. In 2010, the Minsk Cathedral celebrated its three-hundredth anniversary with great solemnity. Archbishop Kondrusievich served as Metropolitan of Minsk-Mohylev until January 2021. (partly, for a few months in 2020 from the territory of Poland). He is currently the senior archbishop of that archdiocese.

It is largely thanks to the ministry of the Polish clergy that the Catholic Church in Belarus, in spite of Sovietisation, forced atheisation, numerous legal and administrative restrictions by, among others, the State Committee for Religions and Nationalities in more recent times, remains a living organism, guardian of the material substance of sacred buildings and - which is also important - a mainstay of the Belarusian language in a Russified country.