Benedictine Monastery

The Benedictine monastery complex-a monastery and a church – was built in Nesvizh in 1596 at the expense of Prince Radziwill Sirotka and his wife Elzbieta Euphemia, designed by the Italian architect Bernardoni. The Benedictine monastery – the first Catholic women’s monastery on the territory of Belarus-circled around the most significant bastion in the city’s defensive system. Behind the ramparts were ditches filled with water from the Usha River. In 1876, the church of St. Euphemia was rebuilt as an Orthodox church, and the monastery was closed and transferred to the barracks of the Russian army. In 1920, the church was returned to Catholics again, nuns returned to Nesvizh from near Warsaw. In 1945, the church tower was completely destroyed, only photos and old images serve as a memory of it. After the war, a pedagogical college was located in the premises of the monastery, which is still operating here.

The monastery buildings and the former church were rebuilt and repaired many times. Very small sections of the old walls and a three-tiered bell tower of the second half of the XVIII century have also been preserved to this day. It served as a gate and was built into the high wall surrounding the monastery courtyard.