Saint John the Baptist Cathedral
The stone cathedral of Gagauzia's capital, with a free-standing belfry and nineteenth-century bells.
Comrat grew in the early nineteenth century as a settlement of Gagauz families moving north of the Danube, and its church was among the first substantial stone buildings. Sources put the foundation at 1820 or 1840 and agree that the building was finished and consecrated in 1856; the undertaking is linked with the priest Theodosius Marunevich and was paid for by the settlers and by local landowners. The stone bell tower was raised separately from the church and carries five bells cast in the middle of the century at foundries in Moscow, Kharkiv and Podolsk.
The Soviet authorities closed the church in 1961 and turned it into a museum, stripping out the furnishings while leaving the wall paintings in place; a scorched tile in the floor is still pointed out as the spot where books were burned. Worship resumed in 1988 after restoration, and a single icon of the Mother of God, saved by a local resident when the others were carted away, survives from the old furnishings. The church is listed as an architectural monument of Gagauzia and serves as a cathedral of the Cahul and Comrat diocese.
Highlights
- Stone cathedral consecrated in 1856 for the Gagauz settlers
- Free-standing belfry with five mid-nineteenth-century bells
- Used as a museum from 1961 and returned to worship in 1988
- A single surviving icon of the Mother of God from before the closure
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