The Church of the Saviour, the Epiphany Cathedral and the Kharlampievsky Church — three monuments of federal significance, three different restoration stories.
In 2027 the Irkutsk diocese will be 300 years old. Over five years the regional programme has helped to restore 16 churches, with the region covering 75% of the cost and the diocese 25%.
The Church of the Saviour
The church of 1706–1710 stands on the site where the fort was founded. In summer 2025 scaffolding went up around it, and by August 2026 the old plaster had been removed and the historic finish of the façades restored.
The Epiphany Cathedral
The city’s second-oldest church has been under construction since the 1720s. The bell tower’s problem is Soviet cement plaster, under which the brick crumbled. Emergency work cost about 16 million roubles, and about 13 million more are needed to finish; the aim is to complete it for the diocese’s anniversary.
The Kharlampievsky Church
This late-18th-century Siberian Baroque monument has been revived since 2006. In April 2026 the final stage — the façades, plinth and drainage apron — was accepted.
Sources (in Russian): IRK.ru, 5 August 2026; IRK.ru, 11 July 2025; IrCity, 25 May 2026; IRK.ru, 2 April 2026.
