Belogruda. The Church of St. Michael the Archangel.

The story of Belogrudy.

A small village with the beautiful name of Belogruda in the Lida district of the Grodno region has a rich ancient history. There were settlements of the Banzer culture and the medieval period in this place in the VI-VIII and XII-XIII centuries.

(The Banzer culture is the culture of the Slavic-Baltic tribes, widespread in the middle of the 1st millennium AD in the territory of present-day Central and Northern Belarus. It is named after the first Bantzerov settlement discovered in the late 1920s (named after the village of Bantzerovshchyna) near Minsk, on the left bank of the Svisloch River. Each culture has its own types of settlements, tools of labor and everyday life, etc.)

Under its modern name, the settlement has been known since the 16th century as a private property within the Lida County of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There is a version that the name of the settlement came from a nearby limestone deposit, from which the ancient name of the village of Bely Grud originated.

Since the first half of the XV century, these lands belonged to the Zavish-Kezgailo. The first known representative of the family was Andrei Gulginovich, a princely cook, to whom Kazimir Yagailovich confirmed his inheritance in Lida parish around 1442.

In the middle of the XVIII century, the Radziwills became the owners. Since the beginning of the 19th century, a whole series of owners changed, and finally in 1921 the property became the property of the Polish state. In 1939, Belogruda became part of the BSSR.

The history of the Church.

The first wooden church in Belogrudy was built in 1608 by the Vitebsk voivode, the elder of the Surazhsky subdistrict and podkomoriy of Lida subdistrict Jan Yanovich Zavisha and his wife Anastasia Trizna. (Podkomoriy is a judge in disputes over the boundaries of estates.)

On January 15, 1609, the church was consecrated. The original act on the foundation of the church has been preserved in the State Historical Archive of Lithuania. It was signed by the governor and three witnesses: Andrei Sapega, Alexander Yundzill and Jan Tritsyak. The Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary was made of wood and stood for several decades before it was destroyed by Moscow troops (in the 1660s).

In 1703, the Lida elder Vladislav Shemet rebuilt a new wooden church, which stood on this site until the beginning of the 20th century. Since the 18th century, the church began burying the dead from nearby villages that were part of the Belogrudsky parafia.

At the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the efforts of the local priest Kazimir Stalevsky, with donations collected, a new stone church in the Neo–Gothic style was built on the site of the old wooden church that had fallen into disrepair, which blended extremely beautifully into the surrounding landscape. 

The construction of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in its modern form was carried out from 1900 to 1908. The church was consecrated in 1908 in honor of St. Michael the Archangel.

Due to its location on the high bank of the Ditva River, the church is clearly visible from a great distance.

Architecture.

From the outside, the temple is a basilica with two two-tiered towers. The style is Neo–Gothic (according to some sources, Neo–Romanesque). The elements of the architectural decoration are made of brick masonry.

The central facade of the building at the main entrance is distinguished by an arched gate. The wings of the transept, on the front facades, are marked by rose windows in the area of dihedral shields, which, in turn, are crowned with majestic crosses.

Interior.

The interior of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel is divided into naves by massive arches on four-sided columns, which, in turn, are overlapped by cross vaults, decorated with frescoes with amazingly beautiful ornamental paintings.

Organ choirs are located directly above the entrance.

The semicircular apse is distinguished by an arched opening, above which there is a painting with figures of archangels sitting in front of the Sacred Cross. At the end of the nave there is an eight-columned two-tiered altar of the neo-Romanesque style. In the very center of the altar there is a miraculous image of the Mother of God of Mercy, which is a copy of the Mother of God Ostrobramskaya. The shrine dates back to the 17th century.

Similar, but smaller, single-tiered and four-column altars are located in the transept. The small fence of the altar is crowned with four images of angels.

Additional information.

There is a plaque on the church, according to which the Belogrudsky Church of St. Michael the Archangel is an architectural monument of national significance.

In general, the building of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel looks more like a medieval castle, which holds many unsolved age-old secrets. The temple is located in an ancient cemetery, which is surrounded by a stone fence. All the burials form an arc around the church. The oldest burial is dated 1874. There is a wooden chapel on the edge of the cemetery, which is older than the church itself. The exact date of construction is unknown, but it is most likely the middle of the 19th century. The chapel retains the original tiles, which it was originally covered with.