Chapel of the City Cemetery (currently All Russian Saints Orthodox Church of Klaipėda)

The first city cemeteries used to settle near churches, on the bastion near the Stone Gate in the 17th c. and later – on Naujojo Sodo Street. Due to lack of space the cemetery used to be closed and turned into squares, sports fields or even built upon. The cemetery from the modern-day Naujojo Sodo Street was transferred to Liepų and Trilapio streets in 1820. In the second half of the 19th c. the cemetery of all Christian denominations, became the pride of the city, featuring abundant greenery, artistic tombstones of family graves and fences, forged by blacksmiths of Klaipėda, while the entire territory was fenced with a wooden plank fence. The modern clinker-brick chapel with a neo-Gothic tower and some features of historicism was built near the intersection of Trilapio and Liepų streets in 1938-1939. The vertical expression, characteristic of the Gothic style, is emphasized by a high sloped roof and narrow vertical buildings. On three sides the building was also surrounded by a shelter, supported on rhythmically arranged columns. The chapel was connected with other buildings, used for cremation and other burial purposes. Under the floor, the chapel had a semi-basement, used for temporary keeping the dead. After the war, in 1945 the church was used as a grain storage. In 1947 the chapel was given to the Orthodox Church. After the World War II their community increased to 1 000 people and it was the first officially-acknowledged religious community in Klaipėda city. The formerly neo-Gothic belfry was replaced with a characteristic Eastern Orthodox onion dome. The church was also equipped with an iconostasis (a decorous wall with Eastern Orthodox icons), brought from an Eastern Orthodox church, closed in Liepaja. In 1954, consecrated with an icon of All Russian Saints, the former chapel of the city cemetery officially became the All Russian Saints Orthodox Church of Klaipėda.
After the World War II the Lutheran Community in Klaipėda was officially registered only in 1955 and didn’t have its own house of prayer. They were granted the permission to host the mass in Klaipėda, sharing the house of prayer with the Eastern Orthodox community only in 1952 and used to gather for the mass on the second half of the day, after the Eastern Orthodox mass, up until 1990. The Lutheran community of Klaipėda were given premises near the former Church of St John only after the restoration of independence, in 1990. In 2004 the All Russian Saints Orthodox Church of Klaipėda was renovated, featuring renewed murals, gilded iconostasis and a replaced onion dome.
The complex of the cemetery chapel, including three interconnected buildings was announced as an object of immovable cultural heritage, protected by the state, and included into the Register of Immovable Cultural Properties on 18 November 2004.