St. Ioasaph the Bishop of Belgorod is the patron saint of Belgorod land. He lived in 18 century and was canonized in 1911. His relics were kept in the Holy Trinity Cathedral. The Bolsheviks ruined the cathedral in 1927.
The place of the former Holy Trinity Cathedral is on Svyato-Troitsky Boulevard, not far from the Sobornay (Cathedral) Square. It is just in that place that the formation of the city began after the third Belgorod fortress had been finished. The construction of the stone cathedral of the Holy Trinity began in the time of Sheremetyev in 1660. The cathedral was the center of the Diocese of Belgorod.
St. Ioasaph the Bishop of Belgorod (Gorlenko) served at the cathedral for 6 years. When he died his undecayed relics were put in the shrine near the altar of Holy Trinity Cathedral. In 1883 the bishop`s see was moved from Belgorod to Kursk, and the Holy Trinity Cathedral was included in the same-name monastery.
In 1911 St. Ioasaph was canonized as for two centuries many pilgrims came to his undecayed relics and he became the patron saint not only of Belgorod but also of the entire Belgorod land.
In 1920 the Holy Trinity Monastery was closed and the relics of St. Ioasaph were at first moved to the Moscow Museum of the People’s Commissariat for Health, and then to Leningrad, to the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism at the Kazan Cathedral. In 1927 the Holy Trinity Cathedral and the bell tower were taken to pieces for construction materials, and on the territory of the monastery there were accommodated a Communist Party school, an orphanage, an army unit and a local history museum.
The remaining monastery buildings were most severely damaged in March 1943 during the fierce fighting, which preceded the Battle of Kursk, one of the greatest battles of World War II. After that a special commission took a decision not to restore the monastery buildings.
In our days the building of Belgorod metropolitanate is on the place of the Holy Trinity Cathedral. During the excavations of 2010 there was discovered the crypt of St. Ioasaph. A glass dome was erected above the crypt. One can get into the crypt from the chapel built in the court of Belgorod metropolitanate. The relics of St. Ioasaph are now kept at the Transfiguration Cathedral.
