The Corpus Christy Church in the Village Ikazn

This village of the Braslav district of the Vitebsk region has rather interesting history. During the biggest battles it was repeatedly destructed and rebuilt, when it would seem easier to move the future settlement to some other place. However, thanks to it, walking where, you can feel the spirit and atmosphere of the past years and great wars.

The village and the island

There are still several views concerning the origin of the name Ikazn. Some of them are related to the legend about one angry and cruel Polish man who lived in that area and often used the word “execute”. From the scientifically based point of view, the territory of the village and nearby land was in possession of the Baltic tribes, and the word “ikazn” can be translated from Finnish as “window”.

Without doubt, the village has borrowed its name of the nearby lake Ikazn, in the middle of which there was a rather interesting architectural object – a castle, exactly, in different years there have been several variant of the building.

The original fortress was constructed in the early XVI century; however, it was destructed in 1515. Remarkably, the initiator of the construction was the foregoer of the well-known Lev Sapieha. When the castle was rebuilt, the Great Chancellor of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth restored it to the proper defensive condition. All around the island there were constructed different kinds of fortifications including moats, fortress walls, mounds, stone structures and towers. The only way to get the island was the pontoon bridge that if required could be easily and quickly disjointed.

Finally that part of the history of Ikazn related to the fortress was finished after the Northern War when the village was almost fully destructed again.

The Religious heritage

In the course of the centuries all wooden buildings are gradually replaced by stone ones. The same was with the orthodox temple in the village Ikazn which is well-known due to the fact that the active participant of the revolts of the 30-31^st and 63-64^th of the XIX century and the talented sculptor Heinrich Dmohovsky was baptized there.

The new stone building was erected in 1905 and consecrated in honor of Corpus Christy. It is not a usual church – it looks like a medieval castle rather than a traditional catholic structure. Two four-tier towers with the windows of different shape and style, a gable shield between them with a typical for New-Roman style rose-window – all these elements make the Corpus Christy Church the central figure of the village Ikazn.

The inner decoration is equally remarkable. Here you can see three altars, but the central three-tier one deserves special attention. Thus, the church can interest not only religious people but all curious tourists who can appreciate the uniqueness and genuine beauty.

There are a lot of tourist routes, religious and historical, leading to the stone fence of the church. The Corpus Christy Church still excites foreign visitors and pleases the eye of the inhabitants of the village Ikazn.