Church of St. Adalbert and Benedictine monastery

Church of St. Adalbert and Benedictine monastery (Belarusian: , romanized: Kaściol Śviatoha Vojciecha i kliaštar bieniedykcinak) was a Roman Catholic monastic complex in Minsk originally belonging to the Benedictine order, founded in the first half of the 17th century. It was taken from the order after the January Uprising, and transferred to Orthodox nuns in 1871. The monastery was demolished in the 1930s, and the former church was destroyed in 1964. Only the foundations of the church remain. Currently, the General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus is located on this site.

The church was located on Zborowa Street. It was situated on a small hilly square near the old Calvary, next to the site where a half-destroyed Calvinist church from the late 16th century stood in the mid-17th century. According to the city's 1790 plan, the church's main facade faced northwest.

The Benedictine convent was mentioned in four foundation documents (from 1630, 1631, 1632, and 4 May 1633) by Father Wojciech Sielawa, a Vilnius canon, and parson of Dravėniai and Nyasvizh. The foundation was confirmed by King Władysław IV Vasa on 14 July 1633. In 1632, Wojciech Sielawa bought two houses on Zborowa Street and handed them over to the Benedictine nuns, who had come to Minsk from Nyasvizh. He commissioned a wooden church to be built on the site, which was completed in 1633. The church was dedicated to St. Adalbert, bishop and martyr. In the late 1640s, thanks to the foundation (20,000 Polish zlotys) of Krzysztof Chodkiewicz and his wife Zofia, a brick church was erected. The first project was by Andreas Kromer, who committed to building the church within three years, but failed to do so due to the outbreak of the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). During the conflict, the wooden monastery buildings were burned, and the unfinished brick church was plundered. Thanks to the efforts of Abbess Katarzyna Scholastyka Świrska, the construction of a small brick monastery began in the 1670s to replace the destroyed wooden one. In 1682, the entire monastery complex was reconstructed and expanded, made possible by new foundations and the enlargement of the Benedictine property. By the late 17th century, the nuns' land amounted to about 100 voloks (approximately 1,795.5 hectares). The construction of the church and monastery was completed in 1690. The new brick church was consecrated by Mikołaj Słupski, Vilnius archdeacon. In the 1780s, the church was remodeled in the late Baroque style according to Tomasz Romanowski's design. After Minsk was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1793, the church and monastery continued to operate. According to 1799 review documents, the church had one intact tower covered with sheet metal and topped with an iron cross, while the other was damaged by a lightning strike and temporarily covered with wood shingles. Ignacy Borejko Chodźko reported that the first bishop of the newly established Minsk diocese in 1798, Jakub Ignacy Dederko, ordered the renovation of the towers on Church of St. Adalbert early in his administration. According to Chodźko, the construction was completed in 1803. In 1800, the monastery gardens were divided for the construction of a new street, Felicjańska, reducing the monastery's property by its southwestern part. In 1866, after the January Uprising, the tsarist authorities decided to close the church. The monastery operated for a few more years. Nuns from several other closed monasteries in the Minsk diocese joined it. In early 1871, the Benedictine nuns were moved to Kimbarówka near Mazyr (to the Cistercian monastery). On 20 September 1871, a decree was signed liquidating the Minsk monastery. 12 Minsk nuns were sent to the Nyasvizh monastery, arriving there on October 30.

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).