The Transfiguration Cathedral or Saviour-Transfiguration Cathedral () is an

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

church in

Vinnytsia Vinnytsia ( ; , ) is a city in west-central Ukraine, located on the banks of the Southern Bug. It serves as the administrative centre, administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast. It is the largest city in the historic region of Podillia. It also s ...

, under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. It is located in a site of a former Dominican monastery.

History

The Dominican monastery in

was founded in 1630, but several years later, during the

Khmelnytsky Uprising The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack–Polish War, Khmelnytsky insurrection, or the National Liberation War, was a Cossack uprisings, Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Poli ...

, the monks left it and returned to the city only at the end of the century. In 1758, a stone church for the Dominicans was founded by Michał Grocholski. At the end of the 18th century, six monks were permanently residing in the monastery. The small size and poverty of the community became the official reason for its liquidation in 1832, during the dissolution of monasteries in the Russian partition. In the same year, the closed Dominican monastery was handed over to the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

. In 1833, the community church was re-ordained as the Transfiguration Cathedral - after the demolition of the old church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, it became the main center of Orthodox worship in the city. In 1855, in the burial crypt of the Grocholski family, which was located in the basement of the former church, the lower church of Saints Cosmas and Damian was established, moving the remains of the founders of the Dominican monastery to a separate room in the basement and bricking them up. In 1847 the Cathedral of the Transfiguration was visited by Nicholas I with his sons

Alexander Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here ar ...

and

Nicholas Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Ancient Greek, Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In ...

. After a year, the tsar signed the renovation project of the building, but work on its implementation was not started until 1860. The rebuilt building was consecrated on 27 November 1866 by the Orthodox Bishop of Podole, Leontius. In 1916, Tsar Nicholas II visited the cathedral. During the Polish-Soviet War, the cathedral was visited by Symon Petliura in April 1920 and

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

on 16 May. In 1922, during the confiscation of church valuables, all the valuable equipment of the cathedral was confiscated by the Soviet authorities. In 1930 the building was taken from the Orthodox parish and turned into a warehouse. Then it was returned to the ROC, but in 1962 the state again took over the facility and turned it into a sports hall. In the 1980s, a concert hall was located in the former cathedral. It functioned until 1990, when the building was handed over by the municipal and regional authorities to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The organ used during the concerts in the building was dismantled and went to the Capuchin church of Our Lady of the Angels in Vinnytsia. Until 16 December 2018, the eparchy of Vinnytsia of the UOC (MP) was located in the cathedral. On that day, the local parish was transferred to the jurisdiction of the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine, as did Metropolitan

Simeon Simeon () is a given name, from the Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew, Biblical ''Šimʿon'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Šimʿôn''), usually transliterated in English as Shimon. In Greek, it is written Συμεών, hence the Latinized spelling Sy ...

, the bishop of the Eparchy of Vinnytsia and Bar.

References

External links

* {{Commonscat-inline Buildings and structures in Vinnytsia Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in Ukraine 18th-century Eastern Orthodox church buildings