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Gudovichi. A trace stone and a stone cross.

Landmark

Landmark

Belarus, Minsk region, Chervensky district, Smilovichi village Council, Gudovichi cemetery

Description

There is a trace stone in the cemetery between the villages of Gudovichi and Verkhles. Experts attribute it to the monuments of the pagan cult of the 6th - 10th centuries. The stone is located on a low hill, which the locals call the Holy Hill. It is a platform surrounded by a low rampart and a moat. In its very center there is a stone with an image resembling a human footprint. Locals know many legends about this, they honor the shrine, considering it a "trace of the Mother of God." Next to the stone is an archaic stone cross.

Categories

Historical

Historical

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Reviews to the Place

1

Ольга Ерёменко

02.06.2025

A trace stone and a stone Cross.

High commemorative crosses were placed near the "trace stone" and the cross, decorated with embroidered handbrakes, and flowers were planted. During excavations, traces of bonfires were found near the stone. A chapel has been erected on the site where, according to local legend, the Mother of God appeared.


The Holy Hill and its history are closely connected with the history of the Lyadinsky monastery, located a few kilometers from it. The hill is located on the road to the monastery, near the village of Verkhles in Cherven district. According to archaeological and ethnographic research, Holy Hill as an archaeological site belongs to a small sanctuary settlement of 8-10 centuries, and in pre-Christian times it was a place of pagan worship. With the adoption of Christianity, Christian temples, chapels, and crosses were often erected on the sites of pagan sanctuaries. Soon, through miraculous events, such places gradually became places of worship for the Holy Mother of God or saints in the national consciousness and traditions.


About the "trace stone" located on the Holy Hill, people say that the Mother of God appeared three times at this place: the first time she quenched her thirst from a spring formed on the south side of the Hill, the second time she walked in the area of the village of Novoselki, and the third time she rested on a large stone and left her footprint on it. There has been a special tradition of venerating the Mother of God in these places for several centuries. The stone cross located next to the "trace stone" in the sixties of the XX century began to "grow" out of the ground like the Turov crosses. 


In the late forties, a local pious woman, whose husband and three sons had not returned from the war, erected metal crosses in memory of them at this holy place. Soon a cemetery was formed around the Verkhles stone and the cross.


As in previous times, today locals and pilgrims come here to pray to the Mother of God, asking for her intercession and seeking strength and protection from the Cross of the Lord. Now this place has been improved: A small canopy was built over the ancient shrines in the form of a chapel, in the center of which a Cross of Worship was erected. The initiator and builder of this charitable work was the artist Alexey Ivanovich Khatskevich, one of the trustees of the Lyadinsky monastery. On August 12, 2017, the chapel and the cross were consecrated.

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