; pl, Bazylika katedralna św. Franciszka Ksawerego w Grodnie) is a Roman Catholic cathedral in

Grodno Grodno (russian: Гродно, pl, Grodno; lt, Gardinas) or Hrodna ( be, Гродна ), is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish b ...

, Belarus. Originally a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

church, it became a cathedral in 1991, when the new diocese of Grodno was erected. Nowadays it is one of only three minor basilicas in Belarus.

History

Construction

The construction of the church started in 1687, when the city was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The completed building in

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style became one of the most important baroque basilica in Europe. In the XII-XIV centuries a pendulum clock was installed in one of the towers. Nowadays it is one of the oldest active clocks in Europe. The cathedral was consecrated in 1705 to

St. Francis Xavier Francis Xavier (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; Latin: ''Franciscus Xaverius''; Basque: ''Frantzisko Xabierkoa''; French: ''François Xavier''; Spanish: ''Francisco Javier''; Portuguese: ''Francisco Xavier''; 7 April 15063 December 15 ...

by bishop Teodor Potocki. The ceremony was attended by the Russian Emperor

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

and the King of Poland Augustus II the Strong. Sixty meters in length and thirty meters wide, it became one of the largest in Europe. During the XVIII century the Jesuits were decorating the cathedral with frescoes, ordered altars and baroque domes. The retable (lat. 'retabulum') got more than 70 sculptures of high artistic value, 20 on the first level, 15 on the second, and 14 on the third. Among them there are four female figures as personification of the continents, two lions, 14 angels, etc. The monastery was dissolved in 1773 and the church became a parish one.

XX – XXI centuries

The church survived

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

with no serious damage. In 1960 it was officially closed for public religious services (for 27 years). The

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

authorities tried to convert the building into a museum or a concert hall. Despite this, people attended the church every Sunday for a common prayer, songs and rosary. The religious services were restored in 1987. In 1990 the church was granted the title of

minor basilica In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a designation given by the Pope to a church building. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular ...

, and a year later it became a cathedral for a diocese of Grodno.

References

Sources

* А.А. Ярашэвіч, В.Дз. Бажэнава. Гродзенскі кафедральны касцёл святога Францыска Ксаверыя – Мінск: Беларусь, 2005. (In Belarusian) * *

External links