Sobor Svatyh Apostolov Petra i Pavla, Minsk

The Council of Saint Peter and Paul - the Orthodox Council in Minsk, in 1612–1799 the main temple of the male monastery, then the parish church, in 1933–1941 and 1944–1991 closed.

The church was built in 1612 together with a male monastery under the same call, from the Foundation of the Private Donors and the local Orthodox Brotherhood. One of the founders of the Council was the Minsk army Adam Wańkowicz. The building was built on private ground, thanks to which it could be erected during the period when the construction of new temples of this denomination was illegal in the Commonwealth.

Initially, there were three altars in the temple - the main one dedicated to Saint Peter and Paul and two side of Saint. John the Baptist and Saint. Archangel Michael.

The church together with the entire monastery was seriously damaged during the Northern War, and after 1720-attacked by a group of nobles-Catholics who devastated its interior and beat monks. In the next decades, the church was in worse technical condition. The renovation of the building was only financed by Tsarina Katarzyna II after the Second Partition of Poland, when Minsk was already within the Russian Empire. The ruler of Russia at the same time decided about the dissolution of the Minsk monastery and the transfer of the last monks to the buildings after the former Uniate monastery of the Holy Spirit, and then to the monastery of the revelation of the Lord in Pinsk and about the change of the call of the church to St. Catherine. In 1812, during the march of the Great Army of Napoleon against Russia, the church of Saints Peter and Paweł was devastated by French soldiers and served as a field hospital for two months. Services at the facility were resumed only in 1814. In 1844 the building was rank by the Council.

In the years 1870–1871 a general renovation of the Council took place, combined with the insertion of a new iconostasis, building an additional dome and making frescoes inside.

The temple remained open until 1933, when it was picked up the Orthodox parish and turned into a warehouse. The interior of the temple was divided into three floors. The German authorities in 1941 agreed to open the Council again. On December 7, 1941, the Archbishop of Filoteusz re -consecrated the object and re -gave him the call of Saints Peter and Paweł. However, after Minsk took over the Red Army in 1944, the building was again taken away and turned into apartments. The interior of the object was completely transformed, dividing them into four levels. In 1945, the headquarters of the Central Archives of the October Revolution and socialist construction were moved to the former Council. From the 1960s, the building has been occupied by the Archives of Scientific and Technical Documentation and the Archives of the Literature and Belarusian Art of SSR. In 1970, a project to destroy the temple and erecting apartment blocks in its place was created. After this date, the building was renovated from the outside - its former shape was restored.

The Russian Orthodox church regained the Council building in 1991, but its re -adaptation for liturgical purposes lasted for the next four years.