@silviudancu: The Russian Orthodox Church in Bucharest, dedicated to Saint Nicholas. The church was built between 1905 and 1909 at the initiative of the Russian ambassador Mihail Ghiers for the embassy staff and Russian believers in Bucharest. It was during the time of the last Tsar of Russia. The imperial court in Saint Petersburg provided 600,000 gold rubles, with the decision not to save on materials and money. The church was built according to the plans of the Russian architect M. Preobrazhenschi. A Russian Orthodox cross is mounted on each of the seven spires specific to Russian architecture. In 1992, in the context of strained relations between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, in connection with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia, services in Russian were stopped, and the church was transformed into a student chapel, the church being located near the University of Bucharest. The interior oil painting, in the style of old Byzantine painting or the painting from Mount Athos, was made by the painter Vasiliev, the iconostasis, carved in wood and gilded, was painted by Viktor Vasnetsov, after the model of the one in the Cathedral of the "St. Archangels" in the Kremlin. In 1916, during the First World War, the church was closed, the objects of worship and the archive being evacuated to Iași, and from there to Saint Petersburg, where they were lost during the Russian Revolution. After the war, services were resumed and celebrated in the Old Slavonic language, attracting not only Russians, but also Serbs and Bulgarians from Bucharest. In 1935 the Russian Church was transferred under the authority of the Romanian state and made available to the professors and students of the University of Bucharest. In 1947, it was transferred by the Soviet authorities back under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow, it was repaired and its painting was restored. It returned to the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1957. It was reinforced after the 1977 earthquake, and the restoration of the painting began in 2000. #church #orthodox #russian #bucharest #faith

Silviu Dancu

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Saturday 30 May 2026 06:24:37 GMT