Church of St Cyril of Turau and All the Patron Saints of the Belarusian People

The Church of St Cyril of Turau and All the Patron Saints of the Belarusian People stands in Woodside Park, London. It is a wooden church, the first built in the city since the Great Fire. The building serves as the first Eastern Catholic church in London and the first Belarusian Uniate church outside Belarus. It also commemorates the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and is the first church in London made mainly of cross-laminated timber panels. The church sits beside the Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum and the Marian House, a Belarusian community centre. The church’s construction began in 2015 and was completed in 2016. The cornerstone, brought from the Holy Trinity Church in Druja, was laid in a ceremony led by Archbishop Antonio Mennini and Bishop Hlib Lonchyna. It was consecrated later that year. The design draws on rural wooden churches in Belarus, using timber and glass with minimal windows to reflect Byzantine liturgical tradition. The external walls follow the vertical cladding style of 18th-century Uniate churches. Inside, the iconostasis and altar feature icons painted in 1926 by Duchess Olga Bennigsen and Eric Ward for Westminster Cathedral. The church also holds icons from a former Belarusian Catholic church in Chicago. The ashes of Vera Rich, an English poet and translator of Belarusian, were buried here in 2017. The building has won awards including the RIBA London Regional Award and was featured in Open House London. Its design has been praised by the Royal Academy of Arts and ArchDaily.