Святая церковь находится рядом.

Because it is a feminine singular nominative adjective, and it agrees with церковь, which is a feminine singular noun.

In Russian, adjectives change form to match the noun they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here:

• церковь = feminine, singular, nominative
• so святой changes to святая

A few related forms of the same adjective are:

• святой храм = a holy church/temple (masculine)
• святая церковь = a holy church (feminine)
• святое место = a holy place (neuter)
• святые места = holy places (plural)

A very common clue is that many Russian nouns ending in -ь are either masculine or feminine, so you have to learn their gender individually. Церковь happens to be feminine.

You can also tell from agreement:

• святая церковь uses the feminine adjective form святая
• that confirms the noun is feminine

Its nominative singular form is:

• церковь

Some other forms are:

• церкви
• церковью

So this is a noun whose gender is not obvious from the ending alone and is best memorized with its adjective agreement.

Both святая and церковь are in the nominative case.

Why? Because церковь is the subject of the sentence:

• Святая церковь находится рядом.
• The holy church is located nearby.

The subject of a Russian sentence is usually in the nominative.

Also:

• святая is an adjective modifying церковь
• adjectives take the same case as the noun they describe

Historically, yes, находиться is related to the idea of being found or being located, but in modern Russian it very often simply means:

• to be located
• to be situated

So in this sentence, находится is a normal, natural way to say that the church is somewhere.

It often sounds a bit more formal or explicit than simply describing location another way. Compare:

• Церковь рядом. = The church is nearby.
• Церковь находится рядом. = The church is located nearby.

Both are possible, but находится makes the sentence feel a little fuller and more formal.

Because Russian usually does not use a present-tense verb meaning is/are in simple statements the way English does.

So Russian often says:

• Церковь рядом. literally something like:
• Church nearby.

That already means:

• The church is nearby.

The word есть in modern Russian is usually not the normal equivalent of English is in ordinary present-tense sentences.

Instead, Russian either:

• leaves the present-tense to be unspoken, or
• uses another verb such as находится when it wants to emphasize location

Рядом means:

• nearby
• close by
• near

In this sentence, it stands alone, so it means nearby in a general sense.

Examples:

• Школа рядом. = The school is nearby.
• Магазин находится рядом. = The store is nearby.

If you want to say next to or near something specific, Russian often uses:

• рядом с + instrumental

For example:

• Церковь находится рядом с парком. = The church is next to / near the park.

So:

• рядом = nearby
• рядом с чем-то = near something

Russian has no articles like English a/an and the.

So:

• церковь can mean a church, the church, or just church, depending on context

In this sentence, English probably uses the holy church because the context makes it definite. Russian leaves that to the situation, word order, and context.

This is very normal in Russian.

Yes. Russian word order is much more flexible than English word order because case endings do a lot of the grammatical work.

The neutral order here is:

• Святая церковь находится рядом.

But other orders are possible, depending on emphasis:

• Церковь находится рядом. = The church is nearby.
• Рядом находится святая церковь. = Nearby there is a holy church / Nearby is the holy church.
• Находится рядом святая церковь. = possible, but more marked or literary

Even when the order changes, the core meaning stays similar. The choice often depends on:

• what is already known
• what is new information
• what the speaker wants to emphasize

The stress is:

• святАя
• цЕрковь
• нахОдится
• рЯдом

A rough pronunciation guide:

• святАя ≈ svya-TA-ya
• цЕрковь ≈ TSER-kofʹ
• нахОдится ≈ na-HO-di-tsa
• рЯдом ≈ RYA-dam

A couple of useful notes:

• final voiced consonants in Russian are often devoiced, so в at the end of церковь sounds more like f
• -тся in находится is pronounced -ца

Because находиться is a reflexive verb. The basic infinitive is:

• находиться

The ending -ся / -сь is the reflexive marker.

In the 3rd person singular present tense:

• он/она/оно находится = he/she/it is located

So here:

• церковь находится = the church is located

Many Russian verbs with -ся are not truly reflexive in the English sense. They often function as normal verbs with meanings that simply have to be learned as whole vocabulary items.

Yes, absolutely. That would be a very natural Russian sentence.

• Святая церковь рядом. = The holy church is nearby.

Russian often omits the present-tense is. So this shorter version is very common in everyday speech.

The version with находится sounds:

• a little more explicit
• a little more formal
• slightly more like is located

So both are correct, but they feel a bit different in style.

Usually it means holy church or sacred church as a normal adjective + noun phrase.

However, depending on context, phrases like Святая Церковь with capitals can also have a more elevated or religious meaning, like the Holy Church as an institution.

In your sentence, with lowercase:

• Святая церковь находится рядом.

it most naturally reads as a regular descriptive phrase:

• the holy church
• a holy church

So the phrase is grammatically ordinary, even if the vocabulary is religious.

It can mean both, depending on context.

Церковь can mean:

• a church building
• the Church as a religious institution

In this sentence, because of находится рядом (is nearby / is located nearby), the meaning is almost certainly the building, since institutions are not usually described as being physically nearby in this way.

So here the location phrase tells you how to understand the noun.