Friday Church is named in honor of the Holy Martyr Paraskeva. It is located in the Old Town and is considered the first stone Christian church in Vilnius, although initially was a wooden structure. She later became a stone on the orders of Mary - wife of Prince Algirdas.

Friday Church was built in 1345 and did not differ outstanding architectural delights or size. But Friday Church is known that it is in this great Peter I celebrated a prayer service in honor of the victory over Charles XII during the Great Northern War. The king gave the banner of the church, which he took from the Swedish soldiers.

According to some reports, in the old days at the present location of the church housed the temple Ragutisa - Lithuanian god of drunkenness. The wife of Lithuanian Grand Duke Maria insisted that the temple was demolished and destroyed, and in its place was built the Orthodox Church in 1345. Died in 1346 Maria Vitebsk was buried in this church. This temple is called the first Christian church in the city of Wilna, built of stone.

In 1557 the church was damaged by fire, but in 1560 it was restored. But in 1610 the share of the temple fell another fire, after which the temple was rebuilt only in 1698godu. Inevitably, the church fell into decay, because the conflicts of the Uniate and the Orthodox Church could not but affect her condition.

Later, in 1746, the temple was burned almost to the ground, and his recovery took a considerable amount of effort. Uniates yet got itself into the possession of the church in 1795. But in 1839, when the Lithuanian Uniate Church was liquidated, the temple again passed into the hands of Orthodoxy. At this time, the church was a dilapidated building that is used as a warehouse for firewood.

In 1864, Friday Church was virtually rebuilt in the same place. This event has promoted the Governor-General Ants MN, and the architect of the new church began Marcinowski. To the temple took a more advantageous position, it was demolished some buildings that surrounded the ruined church. The ancient church buildings are preserved only in part. The temple was lit in 1865 in the presence of the Governor General Von Kaufman, and in 1886 the territory surrounding the church was surrounded by iron fence, standing on a stone foundation.

In the second half of the XIX century the church did not have its own parish and was assigned to St. Nicholas Church, located nearby. In the time between the First and Second World Wars, the church has also been in charge of St. Nicholas Church. World War II brought the destruction of the entire interior of the temple.

From 1945 to 1949, the church held a deep overhaul. By 1946, the temple was officially registered one hundred parishioners. In 1959, he received the life of the project the equipment of the temple into a museum of atheism, but the museum was set up much later in the church of St. Casimir. Surprisingly, in 1961, it was closed Friday Church. But since 1962 the building of the church started a museum dedicated to a small fine arts named branch of the Art Museum.

By 1990, the church was returned to the Lithuanian-Russian Orthodox Diocese of Vilna Church. At the end of May 1991, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Lithuania and Vilna performed the ceremony of lighting the temple. Friday Church attributed to Prechistenskaya Cathedral. Now in the church only on Sundays divine services, and the priest Vitaly Karikavas of the Holy Spirit Cathedral is the liturgy, which are held only in the Lithuanian language.