Saint Nicholas' Church

In the early twentieth century, wave after wave of post-revolution Russian aristocrats, government officials, army officers, and clergy, fearing persecution from Soviet Union, fled from Russia into Shanghai. At one time, Shanghai was home to 50 thousand of these White Russians who brought their rich Russian culture with them into this port city. China's earliest ballet school was opened in Shanghai by a Russian resident, and China's earliest nude model was a White Russian girl who was hired by famous art educator, Liu Haisu. At the time, the hiring caused quite an uproar. While all of this action was taking place, the new and unfamiliar Eastern Orthodox Church began quietly taking root in Shanghai.

Facing a massive new religious community, the construction of one or two eastern orthodox churches was not enough to carry the burden for handling so many people. Therefore in 1928, a plan was initiated to open a grand new church. 100 thousand silver pieces were raised on the French Concession's rue Corneille. A lot of passion and religious devotion was poured into the project and a beautiful place of worship was created. The grand white dome at the center of the structure came to occupy a central place in peoples' field of vision. Its half-cir-cle crests come symmetrically off the top in the front, back, left, and right, like a slowly blooming lotus. On March 31, two years after beginning construction, St Nicholas was completed and its opening ceremony was held. Both fresh and elegant, the structure was a masterpiece that architects would come to view and study. Every Sunday, the church would be filled with Russians, and during the major holidays, the crowd spilled out the front of the church and into the sur-rounding streets.

During the Cultural Revolution, St. Nicholas suffered a fate similar to that of other churches in China. The spire on the top of the roof was heartlessly torn down, and the church was fumed into a factory. St. Nicholas was finally fully restored at the end of the twentieth century, and the church spire has been rebuilt. For a while, the church had been converted into the restaurant Ashonti, which was once considered one of Shanghai's best French Restaurants. But today, the church doors are locked tight, and a security system has been installed to keep people out. St. Nicholas has devolved into a place of little interest to anyone.

Families now live in the courtyard behind the church, and the comers of many of their houses still retain sculptures that have been left behind. If you want to have a look at these sculptures, you need to first get permission from the landowner. Continuing down Gaolan Lu will lead you to the beautiful garden houses nearby. This is a nice place for photographers to wander around for a day taking pictures. If you come in cloudy weather, you had better bring a tripod. The old homes are painted in dark colors.

Address

The church is located in the Luwan District at 16 Gaolan Lu. It is a short 50 meter walk from the Sun Yat-sen Residence.