2025-02-28
Restoration Underway at St. Petersburg Baptist Church "House of the Gospel"
On February 27, 2025, NTV TV network aired a story about the restoration of the "House of the Gospel" in St. Petersburg
In a few years, the St. Petersburg Baptists will have their own prayer house. The Evangelical Baptist church was built in 1911 on the 24th line of Vasilievsky Island in the Art Nouveau style. Today, there are 3,500 Baptists in St. Petersburg, also known as the Northern capital. Now, garbage is being removed from the church building, and remodeling is underway.
In older historical photographs, the House of the Gospel was surrounded by green trees and a garden. Today, the building is surrounded by factory buildings, because having to vacate their building in 1930, it was taken over by the Elektropribor enterprise. And for almost a century, no prayers were heard here.
The first request to return the House of the Gospel to the church was made in the early 90s. Soon, city authorities signed an order to return the building. But in fact, the believers received it two decades later, in 2012. However, the Baptist Christians here were not able to begin repairs right away.
On the way to the House of the Gospel there was a factory checkpoint. The area where the garden once stood became the property of the enterprise. Only last year the way to the building was opened and believers were finally able to return to their native walls.
Sergey Ivanov, responsible for the restoration of the House of the Gospel said, "When we received access to this building, it was impossible to even walk here. Absolutely everything was covered with various things that "Elektroapparat" left as our problem to deal with. We literally had to crawl through here. At first, we spent time on clearing the passages inside this building."
At the beginning of the last century, it was the largest Baptist prayer house in the Russian Empire. It was built on the initiative of Pastor Wilhelm Fetler. True, some believers were against it. The cost of construction was exorbitant.
Nevertheless, with the consent of Nicholas II, the community acquired a plot of land on Vasilievsky Island with a former chocolate factory: 35 acres for 42 thousand tsarist rubles. Today’s equivalent of over a million dollars.
Today, volunteers work in the building, coming from all over the country come to help. It seems like it's still a long way from being finished. We need to remove the remnants left by the electro-plant, they're everywhere, and the layout of the premises had been changed beyond recognition.
The building stood without a roof for a long time, and unfortunately, the stained glass window of the main hall was lost. Stars seem to glow on the brickwork. In fact, these are the shortcomings of the brickwork. Each era left its mark.
The building is supposed to be restored to its historical layout, with its true beauty appearing behind the broken false walls. The Baptists believe the restoration of the House of the Gospel will take a couple of years. Despite the difficulties, this must be done for the sake of those who founded it and knew the value of being able to pray in this house with freedom.
