The Old Believers' Church of Vainova

The church was built in 1980, although an Old Believer congregation existed here already in the 18th century.

The Vainova Old Believer Prayer House belongs to one of the oldest Old Believer congregations in Latgale, founded in 1859.
The wooden prayer house of the Old Believers built in the village of Vainova was one of the largest in Latgale - the eastern region of Latvia. Since the 18th century, there was a large area inhabited by Old Believers here. In this region, the Old Believers without priests had settled: Pomors and Fedoseyevs.  
The Vainova prayer house was spacious: approximately 2,000 people could gather for prayer at the same time; it was located in the village of Vainova, Feimaņi parish, Rēzekne district. This wooden cult building of the Old Believers was lost as a result of a fire.
In 1906, the city surveyor of Rezekne N. Sergejevs submitted for approval a project for a new Old Believers' prayer house. According to the documentation, it was a rather large cult building (21.3 x 12 m), height - 6.8 m, with four yumols and choirs. To support the roof covering structures, two rows of columns were used - five columns each. The prayer house had three entrances, and wood carvings were widely used in the interior of the building. The construction work on the wooden building was carried out by the construction contractor Savins Petrovs.
The Old Believer priest Averkijs Goršakovs, who served here in the pre-war years, has left a bright memory of himself in the memory of the members of the Vainova parish. On May 9, 1938, in issue 103 of the newspaper “Jaunākās Ziņas”, information about his burial was published:
“The pastor of the largest and oldest Vainova Old Believer congregation in Latgale, 74-year-old Averkijs Goršakovs, died at the Rezekne Red Cross Hospital. His funeral took place according to the ancient Old Believer customs and gathered about 1,500 mourners. The deceased was shown great honor: the coffin was carried on his hands on the 28 km long road from the hospital to the homeland cemetery in Malta parish. The clergy and choir followed in the procession.
This solemn funeral procession was organized to celebrate the great merits of the deceased, because Goršakovs had greatly supported the life of his congregation and the construction of the church. The funeral procession was met 10 kilometers from Vainova by the church clergy with choirs. After the burial, a funeral feast with special dishes was organized near the cemetery under the open sky, and pies were distributed to the poor.
At that time (before World War II) there were approximately 1,900 people in the Vainova Old Believer congregation.
On September 28, 1989, a bolt of lightning struck the Vainova Old Believers' prayer house, causing a fire and burning down the wooden religious building. Miraculously, the service books were not burned in the fire.
In 1992, a rectangular brick building crowned by two domes was built on the foundations of the previous burned-down cult building, albeit on a much smaller scale.
The local government and the forestry company have supported the Vainova Old Believer parish by providing building materials; parish members have donated money. The construction work was led by Epistīmija Gorina.

Vladimirs Nikonovs

(supplemented translation from Russian)