The Church of St. Michael the Archangel is located in the Volozhin region in the village of Bogdanovo. The construction of the Church began in 1999, but at this place a few centuries ago there were its predecessors – the wooden churches. The Church of St. Michael the Archangel belongs to the Catholic Church and it is the object that is among historical treasures of the Republic of Belarus.

The history of the temples in Bogdanovo

The first temple in Bohdanovo appeared in 1884. It was a wooden building with an active Catholic parish. You can see the appearance of the buildings on the paintings of Ferdinand Ruszczyc, who lived in the area at the time. He worked and worked, inspired by the religion and the local beauty, so his paintings look so realistic.

Canvas "the Church", written in 1899, depicts people going into the temple of the Archangel Michael. You can judge of what the Church looked like an ordinary wooden building, unremarkable fr om the outside. Also the painting depicts a tiered wooden bell tower.

In the XIX century it was decided to build stone temples, but in Bogdanovo, there was no rich person who could invest money in a new Church. Money of the parishioners was not enough. Therefore, the wooden building stood until the great Patriotic war, and unfortunately could not survive. The temple was burned in the fire.

After the war, people needed the faith and patronage, therefore, built a new Church of St. Michael the Archangel in the same place. And again as the material there was picked out the tree. The temple did not stand long, it was dismantled in the 80s.

The construction of the temple of St. Michael the Archangel

The third and final temple in Bohdanovo was built in 1999. This is the building wh ere each year there is a pilgrimage of thousands of believers. This time the Church was built of silica brick. Its style of performance is more similar to the later Baroque and Renaissance.

It is white plastered outside. The entrance is located under a small covered veranda, over which is fited the diamond-shaped window. The classic gable roof is crowned by a wrought iron cross. On the back of the temple on the sides there are two outbuildings. Right at the entrance to the Church is a wooden belfry.

The legacy of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel

In 2015, the workers who worked on the restoration of the temple inside, found a hidden place between the transom windows. There were found 35 folders with documents that describe the activities of all temples in Bogdanovo. The acts of the parish books, contracts, and records of the inventory of the Church – all went into the hands of historians.

Here were kept the parish registers with information about born children, books in which there were recorded the marriage and the book of the dead. A separate directory is dedicated to the census of parishioners who came to serve in the temple. What is surprising is that now a lot of Belarusians will be able to know their ancestry, on the basis of such fantastic finds.

Here you can find a map of the first Church and its surrounding lands, dating from 1818. Very interesting fact that historians do not know anything about that at that time there was any Church. Now they have to spend a lot of work on the received data and uncover the mystery of the first Church in Bogdanovo.