One of the few preserved buildings of Calvinist church in Belarus.

There is no exact information about when the temple was founded. Most likely, it was originally erected as a wooden Calvinist church sponsored by the owner of Smarhoń of that time, Juryj Zianovič. And the stone building appeared thanks to his son Kryštap. It happened at the beginning of the XVII century. On that time the building of the Calvinist church was an octagon with a beautiful arched frieze in the form of a series of niches. The thickness of the temple walls at the base reached 3 meters.

However, in 1621 the daughter of died at that time Kryštap Zianovič, Safija transferred the church to the Catholics. It was consecrated as the Trinity Church. Later, the bell tower and sacristy were added to the main building of the temple. There was a crypt for burials in the underground premises.

Later, no less difficult fate waited for the building. As a Catholic church, it existed until the middle of the XIX century. Due to the anti-Catholic policy of the Russian authority, the Catholic church was turned into the Orthodox Nikolas Church. The building was badly damaged at the time of the First World War. Catholic divine services returned here in the 1920s, when Smarhoń was part of Poland. After the Second World War, in accordance with the Soviet anti-religious policy, the Catholic church was closed, and the building was used as a warehouse and a store. Only in the 1970s local authorities allowed the restoration of the temple and placed an art exhibition in it. In 1990 this building was returned to the Catholics. It was consecrated as the Catholic Church of Archangel Michael and is now operating.

Publication date: 20.01.2021.

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