European best destinations 2024 - Riga

Riga Grebenshchikov Old Believers' House of Prayer

Today, the Grebenshchikov Old Believers' Parish is the largest Old Believers' Parish in the world, with about 25 000 members. Services are held here in accordance with ancient traditions.

The church was founded in 1760, when a wooden barn was built on the banks of the Daugava River, which came to be known as the Moscow House of Prayer on Dvina. At the end of the 18th century, the prayer house was rebuilt and became a stone building. In 1826, the church was named after Alexei Petrovich Grebenshchikov, a merchant and supporter of the Old Believers. 

The house of prayer is built in Byzantine architectural forms, while the slender tower (1905-1906), covered with a gilded onion dome, in the Art Nouveau style. The church has a large prayer hall with an iconostasis or sanctuary wall, several ceremony halls, administration rooms, and apartments for clergy and church servants. It has a rich collection of the 15th–19th centuries icons, books and manuscripts.

 

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