Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Polatsk

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Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Polotsk

The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Polotsk (or St. Sophia in Polatsk; by: Полацкі Сафійскі сабор; ru: Собор Святой Софии в Полоцке) was built by Prince Vseslav Briacheslavich (rr.1044-1101) between 1044 (it is first mentioned in the Voskresenskaia Chronicle under the year 1056) and 1066. It stands at the confluence of the Polota and Western Dvina Rivers on the eastern side of the city and is probably the oldest church in Belarus.

The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Polotsk as depicted on a 2005 20 ruble silver commemorative coin. Vseslav of Polotsk, the cathedral's patron, is shown on the reverse.

The cathedral is, like the cathedrals in Kiev and Novgorod the Great, named after the Holy Wisdom of God. After building his own cathedral, Vseslav, who was an izgoi prince, tried to seize the Kievan throne. Failing in that attempt, he raided the surrounding principalities; in 1067, he raided Novgorod the Great and looted the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom there, bringing a bell and other loot back to decorate his own Cathedral of Holy Wisdom.^[1] The cathedral is mentioned in The Tale of Igor's Campaign, where it says that Vseslav would make nocturnal trips to Kiev as a werewolf and would hear the bells of Holy Wisdom at Polotsk as they rang for matins.^[2]

The cathedral has been significantly rebuilt and heavily modified between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, only parts of the church date back to the time of Vseslav, although the names of the builders are inscribed in a stone at the base of the cathedral: David, Toma, Mikula, Kopes, Petr, and Vorish. The burial vaults of 16 Polotsk princes dating back to the eleventh century have been uncovered (indeed, Vseslav himself, said to have been a sorcerer as well as a werewolf, was buried in the cathedral he built). According to the Voskresenskaia Letopis (s.a. 1156), the cathedral originally had seven domes,^[3] later reduced to five after it was rebuilt following the fire of 1447; it was rebuilt again in 1618-1620 by Archbishop Iasafat Kuntsevich (Josaphat Kuntsevych) (rr. 1618-1623) following a fire in 1607, and again after a fire destroyed the cathedral and the city in 1643. In 1710, Peter the Great and Aleksandr Menshikov used the church as a powder magazine; the magazine exploded. Over the next almost three decades, the Uniat archbishop, Florian Grebnitskii, rebuilt the cathedral a task not completed until 1738. The Vilnius' architect Johann Christoph Glaubitz was responsible for the current appearance, which is an example of the "Vilnius Baroque" style. Currently it is a baroque structure with towers and the domes have been removed (or at least not rebuilt). The cathedral housed a library and other important cultural artifacts, but the library was destroyed when King Stephen Báthory of Poland took the city during the Livonian War in the late 16th century. The town was also occupied by the French during the Napoleonic Invasion in 1812 (indeed, two battles were fought at Polotsk in August and October, the second seeing house-to-house fighting) and also during the Nazi Invasion in the 1940s during which a large number of inhabitants were slaughtered.^[4]

Another view of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Polotsk

The cathedral has also changed functions several times over the centuries. With the Union of Brest, the cathedral became a uniate or Eastern Rite Catholic Church and remained as such until 1839. During the Soviet period, the cathedral housed the Polotsk Regional State Archive (from 1949 to 1954.) In 1967, restoration work took place as the cathedral was to be turned into a museum of atheism, but the museum was moved to Vitebsk in 1969. The cathedral is now part of the State Museum-Preserve of Polotsk and used as a concert hall.

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Cathedral of Saint Sophia, Polatsk