The Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (Biserica Ortodoxă Rusă de Rit Vechi), also known as the Pocrov Church, is a historic church in Brăila, dedicated to the Protection of the Mother of God (Acoperământul Maicii Domnului). Built in 1880 for the city’s Russian Lipovan community, it served for several decades as the cathedral of the Russian Old-Rite Orthodox Metropolitanate.
The Lipovans descend from Russian Old Believers who rejected the liturgical reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon in the seventeenth century. Facing persecution, many sought refuge beyond Russia’s borders, including in the Romanian lands, where they established communities that preserved the older forms of Orthodox worship. Brăila became an important center for these believers, whose religious services follow the pre-reform Russian rite and use Church Slavonic as their liturgical language.
The congregation’s first wooden church was built in 1835 on land donated by Sava Ivanof Rucasinicov. As the community developed, preparations began for a larger place of worship, with the foundation stone laid in 1856. The present masonry church was completed in 1880 and consecrated the following year, replacing the earlier wooden building. Its architecture combines classical exterior details with the characteristic domes and bell tower of an Orthodox church.
The church also became a center of religious and cultural activity among the Old Believers. A local brotherhood supported poorer members of the community, welcomed visiting clergy, and distributed religious literature. From 1895, it published Slovo Pravdy (Word of Truth), a newspaper defending the Old Believer faith, until its publication was stopped in 1899 following intervention by the Russian government.
A major change came in 1940, when the Soviet annexation of Northern Bucovina forced the Old-Rite Orthodox Metropolitanate to leave its headquarters at Fântâna Albă. After a temporary relocation to Slava Rusă in Dobrogea, the metropolitan administration settled in Brăila, and the Pocrov Church became its cathedral. It held this position until 2014, when the metropolitan cathedral was transferred to the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the city’s Pisc neighborhood.
