The main attraction of Dikanka was the St. Nicholas Church, which housed the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas. The beekeeper mentions it: "Do you know the deacon of the Dikanka church, Fyodor Grigorievich? Oh, what a head! What stories he could tell!" It is known that three tales in N. V. Gogol's book "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka," "An Evening Before Ivan Kupala," "The Lost Letter," and "The Enchanted Place," were told by the deacon of the Dikanka church, Fyodor Grigorievich.

According to legend, in ancient times, when the lands of Dikanka were owned by Archbishop Lazar Baranovich of Chernihiv, an icon of St. Nicholas mysteriously appeared on a stump in the forest near Dikanka. The astonished villagers carried it to the village church, but by morning the icon would disappear and reappear on the same stump in the forest. After several such occurrences, it was decided to build a wooden church at that site. By the blessing of the Chernihiv saint, the Nicholas Church was erected in the 1670s. A one-meter oak cross was placed at the site of the icon's discovery, which ended up in the altar of the new church. The main shrine of the church became the miraculously found icon of St. Nicholas, which became a source of miracles.

Later, the lands of Dikanka passed to Vasily Leontievich Kochubey, the general judge of the Zaporizhian army. In 1754, his grandson Pavel, with the blessing of Kyiv Metropolitan Timofei Shcherbatsky, rebuilt the wooden church, expanding it. It became a place of pilgrimage for believers who flocked to their heavenly protector. Due to various disturbances, the diocesan authorities ordered the church to be moved, and the miraculous icon was kept in the episcopal sacristy of the Cross Exaltation Monastery in Poltava.

From 1783 to 1789, the heirs of Vasily Kochubey requested permission from the Synod to build a stone church on the former site. It was not easy to obtain permission, as there were already enough churches in the village. In the 1780s, there were three parish churches in Dikanka: the Trinity, St. John Chrysostom, and the Nativity of the Virgin. The St. Nicholas Church did not have parish yards and was part of the Kochubey estate, although many simple parishioners visited it. After several years, synodal blessing for the construction of the church was received, and Viktor Pavlovich Kochubey, who had reached high state positions in St. Petersburg, built a stone church in 1794, which still exists today. The icon of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker was returned from the episcopal sacristy and took its former place, leading to an increase in the flow of pilgrims.

This church and the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas are connected to one of the early pages in the life of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. His mother, Maria Ivanovna, who lost two children shortly after their birth, made a vow before the icon of the saint that if she had a son, she would name him Nikolai, and asked the village priest of Dikanka to pray until he was informed of the child's birth and asked to serve a thanksgiving prayer. The newborn Nikolai, prayed for, was welcomed into this world with a prayer of gratitude to God. According to the writer's sister, Olga Vasilievna Gogol-Golovnya, her brother loved to recall why he was named Nikolai.

As for the further fate of the Dikanka church, after the revolution, the forest around it was cut down, and the princely burials in the crypt under the church were looted. The church was closed several times, but during the Great Patriotic War, the Liturgy was served here. In 1963, the church was taken from the believers and turned into a museum of atheism. Since 1985, the Nicholas Church has been transferred to the state historical and local lore museum as an architectural monument. Over the years of neglect, the rich church utensils, as well as ancient icons and old liturgical books, were lost. In 1989, the church was consecrated again. The ancient stump, on which the icon was found, still remains under the altar. The miraculous icon of St. Nicholas was kept for some time in the collections of the Poltava local lore museum, but its current whereabouts are unknown.