Church of Holy Trinity, Catholic church on Golden Hill, Minsk, Belarus.
The Church of Holy Trinity (St. Roch) is a single-nave, single-tower Neo-Gothic stone church on Zolotaya Gorka. Its rectangular plan ends in a five-sided apse, the main facade is topped by a two-tier tower with a tent roof, and stepped buttresses divide the walls. A 1908 description records 12 windows, a length of 12.5 sazhens and a height of about 5 sazhens.
King Władysław II Jagiełło founded the Holy Trinity parish in Minsk in the 14th century, the city's oldest documented Catholic community. Its wooden church burned in 1409 and again in 1809; from 1832 the parish used the 1796 wooden chapel of St Roch. Bishop A. Voytkevich obtained permission for a stone church, built in 1861–1864 to a design by M. Sivitsky and consecrated on 1 November 1864.
The church carries two titles: the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Saint Roch, yet the historic name of the Holy Trinity stayed in use. A wooden statue of Saint Roch, brought from the old chapel, stood in the right altar and was considered miraculous; pilgrims gathered by the thousands on 16 August, his feast day. Since 1998 a metal statue by sculptor Valerian Yanushkevich stands in the same place.
The church stands at 44A Independence Avenue (Praspiekt Niezaliežnasci) on Zolotaya Gorka, not on Independence Square, and is now enclosed within a residential block after the surrounding cemetery was built over. Enter from the avenue side; the building is shared between the Catholic parish and concert use, so services are held at times free of concerts.
The 1861–1864 stone church was funded by donations from Catholics and members of other faiths alike, given in thanks to Saint Roch, whom they credited with saving the city from cholera. The wooden miraculous statue of Roch, moved here from the 1796 chapel, drew thousands of pilgrims on 16 August; it vanished after the church was closed in the 1930s, and a metal replacement by sculptor Valerian Yanushkevich took its place in the right altar in 1998.
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