The Piarists is a Catholic religious order founded in the XVII century. It was involved in youth training and education. The first monks arrived in Lida in 1756 on Ignacia Scipio del Campo”s invitation who was its owner. They opened here a collegium, built houses for priests and a wooden catholic church, consecrated in the name of Joseph Kalasants who was the founder of the Order.
In Lida until 1818 there was a wooden Catholic church on the place where now there is St. Michael”s church. It prevented the expansion of the Roman Catholic monastery. Therefore soon the temple was destroyed. A new wooden church was erected on its place in 1825.
In 1842 there was a fire in Lida that destroyed many city buildings. The monastery was burned to the ground. For the next twenty years its ruins were suffering from snow, rain and wind. In 1863 the royal treasury financed the construction of brick St. Michael”s Cathedral in the form of a cross with a circle in the center. It was erected near the monastery”s ruins.
From 1866 to 1919 years the temple was desecrated by warlike supporters of the Catholic faith, and soon it was turned into a church. In September 1939 the church was closed, and for a long time its two-storeyed outhouse was used as a residential building. Later there was a museum, and from 1962 a planetarium had been functioning in the cathedral church.
In 1980 the building received the status of architectural monument. Soon it was transferred into the Orthodox diocese possession.
Today St. Michael”s Church is a brick church-rotunda, covered with a hemispherical dome. Nearby there are single-storey monastery”s buildings and a single storey stone belfry. In the cathedral there are the icons of Archangel Michael, Healer Panteleimon and the Mother of God «Pochaevskaya».
