Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker is the Orthodox cathedral in Białystok, and the seat of the Bishop of the Białystok-Gdańsk in Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Białystok is the tenth largest city in Poland, and the largest in the north-east, which has a relatively large Orthodox population compared to most of this predominantly Roman Catholic country.
The 40 metre high edifice was erected in 1843-46 as a parish church, following eastern Poland’s ‘partition’ into the Russian Empire, and both an anti-Uniate persecution campaign and migration from other areas due to the industrialisation of Białystok, which led to a rise in the Orthodox population in the city. It was built in a neo-classical style typical of Russian Orthodox architecture in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.
It became the cathedral of the Białystok-Gdańsk Orthodox Diocese in 1951. In June 1991, Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral as part of his official visit to his native Poland.
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