Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

 

St. Alexander Nevski - the Orthodox council in Łódź, the cathedral of the Łódź-Poznań diocese of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the seat of the local parish (in the deanery of Łódź). It is located at Jana Kilińskiego 56, in the vicinity of the park. Stanisław Moniuszko and the Łódź Fabryczna railway station.

The parish church was erected in the years 1880–1884 on the initiative of a committee established by the largest factory owners in Łódź who intended to prove their loyalty to the tsarist authorities by building an Orthodox church building. The temple was designed by Hilary Majewski. The church was consecrated in 1884 by the archbishop of Chełm and Leoncjusz from Warsaw. It was also continuously active during World War I, when Russian officials and soldiers left the city. In the interwar period, unlike many other churches built in the Kingdom of Poland for the needs of the Russians, it was not recovered for the Catholic Church or dismantled, which is usually explained by the circumstances of its construction - it was funded by wealthy and respected citizens of Łódź. In 1951, in connection with the establishment of the Łódź-Poznań diocese, the temple was given the rank of a cathedral council.

Inside the building, the original 19th-century furnishings with a three-row iconostasis have been preserved.

 

History

The circumstances of the creation and construction
The first Orthodox families appeared in Łódź in the 1850s; they were only Russians. Initially, their number was insignificant, only after the January Uprising and the tightening of the Russification policy did it begin to grow. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Orthodox constituted about 1-2% of the inhabitants of Łódź (the difference results from including the total number of Russian soldiers stationed in the city), i.e. about 7,000. residents. For religious purposes, a small community used a rented room in a private house, a branch of the All Saints Parish in Piotrków, and did not strive to build a free-standing facility. The soldiers of the 37th Yekaterinburg Infantry Regiment had a separate home church in the apartment of retired military man Andreyev, located at Nawrot Street.

The initiator of the construction of the Orthodox Church in Łódź was the governor of Piotrków, Iwan Kachanow. Initially, however, his appeal for the erection of a free-standing Orthodox temple in Łódź did not bring any results. The city authorities did not accept the concept of building the church near Nowy Rynek (today Wolności Square), proposing that it should be built in the park on Widzewska Street (now Kilińskiego Street), next to the railway station. It was a prestigious location, but it had a significant disadvantage, which was the wetland of the land. At the same time, it was a plot of land owned by the city, which meant that any repairs of the building would be at its expense. On May 24, 1877, Kachanow asked the Mayor of Łódź, Maurycy Taubworcla, to take concrete steps to start construction works. The city architect Hilary Majewski then designed the building, but the Orthodox community, which at that time numbered three hundred people, was not able to cover the costs of the work. The Holy Ruling Synod also decided not to finance the investment.

The initiative to build a church in Łódź was again undertaken by local entrepreneurs, who themselves were not believers of the Orthodox Church. On April 6, 1879, a church building committee was established, including the largest manufacturers of Łódź: Karol Scheibler, Juliusz Heinzel, Józef Paszkiewicz, Edward Herbst, Ludwik Meyer, Symon Heiman jr., Izrael Poznański, A. Tumski, Aleksander Chudziński and Karol Strenge, and also the mayor of the city, Walerian Makowiecki. On the initiative of the committee, the temple was to commemorate the figure and rescue of Tsar Alexander II from the attempt on his life carried out four days earlier by Alexander Soloviev in front of the Winter Palace. The factory owners hoped that erecting a sacred building to commemorate such an event would help them gain government support for their own investment and commercial projects. In particular, they hoped to move the capital of the Piotrków Governorate to Łódź and to obtain new contracts. The committee chose St. Alexander Nevsky - patron of Alexander II. Karol Scheibler chaired the committee until his death in 1881, later he was headed by Ivan Kakhanov. In March 1880, Majewski's design was approved for implementation. Already during the works, the construction committee was joined by Herman Konstadt, Reinhold Finster and Ludwik Grohman, as well as the new president of Łódź, Władysław Pieńkowski

The cost estimate for the construction of the church was PLN 69,000. rubles. The Scheibler family covered the largest part of the costs (25,000 rubles). 11 thousand Juliusz Heinzel donated rubles for the construction, and 10 thousand. Karol Scheibler's son-in-law, Edward Herbst. In addition, Heinzel paid for carpentry work worth 7,000. rubles, and Herbst bought the church equipment for 5 thousand. Izrael Poznański donated 8,000 for the construction, and Herman Konstadt 4,000. rubles. The architect Hilary Majewski covered the cost of making stained glass in the amount of PLN 1.5 thousand. rubles. Private donors, none of whom were members of the Orthodox Church, collectively covered more than 86% of all construction costs.

On May 8, 1880, Fr. Konstantin Ryżkowski, parish priest of All Saints parish in Piotrków Trybunalski, blessed the cornerstone. The construction works were carried out by the Lodz company of Robert Nestler. The consecration of the temple took place on May 29, 1884. The building was consecrated by the Archbishop of Chełm and Leoncjusz from Warsaw in the presence of Warsaw governors Iosif Hurka and Nikolai Zinoviev from Piotrków. The building could accommodate 300 people at one time. Therefore, it was not a large temple, but the favorable location in the background of the park and spatial layout added to its splendor.

 

The square around the church was fenced in September 1891. The construction of the fence was financed by Izrael Poznański. Originally, the square of the church was much larger than it is today.

Orthodox church until 1918
In the year of its commissioning, the temple received a set of silver and gilded liturgical vessels as a gift from Tsar Alexander III.

Until 1906, the number of Orthodox inhabitants of Łódź increased again. In 1906, Russians of this religion constituted about 3% of all inhabitants of the city (10,000 people), which was related to the influx of workers working on the expansion of the railway line from Warsaw to Kalisz, as well as the bringing of additional officials during the revolution of 1905. In the following years, there was a noticeable decrease in the number of Orthodox Christians, who in 1911 again constituted about 1% of the inhabitants of Łódź. Most of the people of this faith left the city during the evacuation of Russian officials in 1915, so that in 1918 the share of Orthodox Christians in the population of Łódź was 0.4%. Until 1917, the pastor of the parish of St. Alexander Nevsky, Fr. Antoni Rudlewski. After he was sent to pastoral work in Warsaw, his duties were taken over by Fr. Teodor Walikowski. This meant that throughout the entire period of World War I, the temple remained active and suffered no material losses. Thanks, Fr. Rudlewski the bell from the church of St. Alexander Nevsky, weighing nearly two tons, was not confiscated by the German army.

Orthodox church in the interwar period
In the interwar period, the number of Orthodox Christians in Łódź increased again, which was influenced by the return of some Russian families to the city and the settlement of Ukrainians and Belarusians there. A group of white Russian emigrants also settled there, but there is no data determining their number. In 1927, 3,000 people lived in Łódź. Orthodox believers, and in 1937 nearly 11 thousand. (according to the questioned data of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare), which made the city the largest Orthodox community in the region.

In the reborn Polish state, the Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevsky became officially the seat of the parish in 1920. It was to be attended not only by the faithful from the city and district of Łódź, but also from the counties of Kalisz, Koło, Konin, Łęczyca, Sieradz, Słupca, Turkish and Wieluń. In the first post-war years, during the restitution of Orthodox churches, when many churches erected at the initiative of the tsarist authorities were demolished, the church of St. Alexander Nevsky was never intended to be closed and liquidated. Similarly, the Łódź magistrate never considered the destruction of the church of St. Olga and the cemetery church of the Dormition of the Mother of God. It was presumed in the literature that the temple's survival was favored by the fact that well-known figures associated with Łódź, not only representatives of the tsarist authorities, were involved in its construction. Perhaps, however, the decision to keep the temple was made for pragmatic reasons (at the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment or at the level of municipal authorities), recognizing that the Orthodox parish in Łódź really needed this sacred building.

In the interwar period, the city authorities co-financed the renovation of the church several times. In the years 1928–1929, the building underwent a major renovation, during which its façade and tower were renovated, and the roof was repaired. In 1936, the facade of the building was renovated again. In the same year, the plot and the church became the property of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church by prescription.

World War II and the post-war period
During World War II, the Orthodox clergy serving in St. Alexander Nevsky issued false baptism certificates to the Jews of Łódź. The Germans demanded that the parish give up church bells to be melted down, but the parish priest, Fr. Stefan Rudyk hid them, walling them up on the belfry. After the liberation of Łódź from the occupation, the bells were restored to liturgical use.

In 1951, the temple obtained the rank of a council, becoming at the same time the cathedral of the Łódź-Poznań diocese. After World War II, the number of Orthodox Christians in Lodz fell again as a result of the persecution of white Russian emigrants by the NKVD. In 1951, 3,000 people belonged to the parish. faithful. At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the number of the faithful attending it was estimated at 2,500 people, of which only 600 were actually practicing. In the 1960s, due to the widening of the street in front of the church's façade, the parish square was removed from the parish and the building was located almost in the immediate vicinity of the road.

The temple was entered in the register of monuments on January 20, 1971 under number A / 117.

In August 2014, the relics of St. Mary Magdalene brought by monks from Athos.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the building was completely renovated, regaining the external appearance of the first years after completion of construction.