The Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the city of
Cherkessk was erected in 1896. Its construction began in 1891 by the
decision of the clergy at the request of the inhabitants of the
Batalpashinsky village. The consecration of the cathedral took place in
December 1896.
The temple in the name of St. Nicholas the
Wonderworker was founded in the village of Batalpashinskaya (now the
city of Cherkessk) in 1891. It was built by the whole world: Cossacks,
residents of the village and nearby villages brought wood, brick, stone
and other building materials. To build the foundation and walls, to
strengthen the mortar, whole carts were brought from all the villages.
On December 19, 1896, on the feast day of St. Nicholas the
Wonderworker, the cathedral was consecrated.
The first two tiers
of the cathedral were made of skillfully turned yellow stone, the upper
part was made of red brick. The central dome with the head was supported
by four columns, the floor was finished with two-color tiles. The
interior decoration was majestic, especially the seven-tiered gilded
iconostasis with silver carvings. In addition to the main throne in the
name of St. Nicholas of Myra, there was a right chapel in the name of
the Apostle John the Theologian. The five-domed cathedral had a
multi-tiered white-stone bell tower, similar to the mast of a ship. It
housed two dozen bells. 222 stone steps led to the very top. The largest
bell, the veche, weighed 850 pounds (13.6 tons). In a snowstorm, to the
sound of the veche bell, which carried for forty miles, the frozen
travelers, lost in the snowstorm, came out and drove out.
Batalpashinsky Nikolsky Cathedral
The cathedral was not heated, but
even in severe frosts it was warm in it - so many people gathered for
worship.
In 1934, an order came to the village, signed by the
secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of
Bolsheviks, L. M. Kaganovich, to destroy the temple within a month. The
chairman of the local regional executive committee, Nikolai Sobolev, a
believer, did not follow the order, after which a dispatch arrived
demanding that the church be blown up within three days. In case of
non-fulfilment, Sobolev, his family, relatives were threatened with
execution and the temple was blown up. When the cathedral was being
demolished, "the people cried, women threw themselves under the wheels
of tractors, the police fired into the air, winches rattled terribly,
they tore off the cross, the dome ... The wind howled, thunder rumbled
...". A new executive committee, a city library and a bathhouse were
built from the stone of the former cathedral.
On December 19,
1998, the first stone was laid in the foundation of the reconstructed
Nikolsky Cathedral. The cathedral was built on donations from the
inhabitants of Karachay-Cherkessia, funds allocated by the authorities
and sponsors of different religions and nationalities.
On
December 19, 2006, Bishop Feofan (Ashurkov) of Stavropol celebrated the
first Divine Liturgy on a temporary altar in the cathedral.
It
remained to complete the interior decoration, painting and the altar
part. Water supply, sewerage, heating were carried out and heated floors
were installed, an autonomous boiler room and an administrative building
of the pilgrimage center were built.
On April 21, 2012, the
restored cathedral was consecrated.
The size of the temple is 32
by 45 m, the height of the walls is 12 m, the height of the bell tower
is 37 m. The capacity of the cathedral exceeds a thousand people.