Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox church in Santa Rosa, Orthodox temple in Santa Rosa, Brazil
Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church is a temple in Santa Rosa with Russian architectural features throughout. The interior displays painted ceilings and numerous framed icons mounted on podiums.
Russian immigrant descendants moved from Campina to Santa Rosa in the 1960s and built this church in the city centre in 1970 under Archpriest Peter Zavadovsky. After his death in 1976 the parish went years without a resident priest. In 1987 it transferred from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia to the Moscow Patriarchate's Argentine diocese. A full interior restoration was completed and the church consecrated anew on 5 September 2016.
The parishioners are mostly elderly descendants of Russian immigrants who no longer speak Russian, and since 2015 a parish choir has sung Paschal and Liturgy hymns in both Portuguese and Church Slavonic. A school opened in 2010 teaches Russian and Orthodox culture to descendants and Brazilians alike.
The church stands in the city centre on its own plot, with a garden of cactus and banana and orange trees beside the priest's house. Liturgy is served in Portuguese and Church Slavonic; a parish choir first rehearsed in 2015. The parish is small, around 35–40 regular attendees in 2013, mostly elderly.
The parish choir first rehearsed on 31 March 2015, led by Anastasia, the rector's wife; they learned Easter and Divine Liturgy chants in both Portuguese and Church Slavonic. The parish is small: in 2013, 35 to 40 people attended regularly out of a city of 80,000. In 2011, priest Dionisy Kazantsev became the first person ever named an honorary citizen of Santa Rosa.
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