The Revival of the Church of the Smolensk icon of the Mother of God and the Chapel of Xenia the Blessed at the Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg in 1946-1950s

One of the important spiritual centers of St. Petersburg since the 19th century was the Smolensk Cemetery, which was especially pronounced in the Soviet period. By 1917, there were three churches in the cemetery and a chapel over the grave of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg, especially revered by believers. During the anti-religious persecution in the early 1930s, the Resurrection and Trinity churches were closed. The Smolensk Church and the chapel of Xenia the Blessed were one of the last closed in the city - in September 1940, on the eve of the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, but already in 1946 the Soviet authorities were forced to allow their opening and return to believers. In the future, the church and chapel were quickly restored and again became a place of worship for the townspeople. The clergy of the Smolensk Cemetery was the largest in the “northern capital” and its income was constantly growing. All this caused a sharp dissatisfaction with the authorities and after the beginning of new anti-religious persecutions, the chapel of Xenia the Blessed was closed. After that, a long-term struggle of believers for its revival began, which ended with success in the 1980s. The article is prepared on the basis of a significant set of archival documents not previously introduced into scientific circulation.