Church of St. Michael the Archangel in the village of Belogruda

There is a village under the name of Belogruda in Lida district of Grodno region. The Catholic Church of St. Michael the Archangel is considered the main property of the village. It is located on a picturesque bank of the Ditva River. The construction of that temple lasted 8 years, from 1900 to 1908. That Shrine was built of brick on the place of a former wooden church. The Church of St. Michael the Archangel is made in the neo-Romanesque style. Thanks to its good location – on the rising ground of a hill in the midst of a swamp – the Shrine is perfectly visible from any destination.

However, the ancient history of this sanctuary takes us a few centuries ago, in 1609, when there was the first, no less significant, Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on those lands.

Like many other Shrines of that time, that temple was built of wood because wooden architecture flourished on the Belarusian lands long ago, and Slavic craftsmen built churches almost by sight without precise measurements and complex architectural layout. Since the 18th century, the dead from the surrounding villages had been begun to bury at the church. However, some years later on the picturesque banks of the Ditva River, a new stone Catholic Church was built on the donations of parishioners. Being quite modest in its external appearance, it was perfectly combined with the surrounding landscape. In 1908, the temple was consecrated in honor of St. Michael the Archangel.

Outwardly, the Church of St. Michael the Archangel of Belogruda village is made in the form of a monumental Shrine with two 2-tiered towers and a 3-naved basilica. There are impressive organ choirs in the interior above the entrance, and the Shrine walls are inlaid with ornamental paintings. There is also a memorial plaque on the doors of the temple, according to which the church is the heritage of the Republic of Belarus and is an architectural memorial of national importance.

The central facade of the building at the main entrance stands out for the arched gates. The transept wings on frontal facades are decorated with rosette windows in the area of the dihedral shields, which, in turn, are crowned with majestic crosses.

The interior of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel is divided into naves with massive arches on square columns, which are, in turn, overlapped with cross vaults and frescoed with amazingly beautiful ornamental paintings.

A semicircular apse stands out for an arched opening, above which there is a painting with figures of archangels, sat before the Sacred Cross.

There is an eight-columned altar in the neo-Romanesque style at the end of the nave. The image of the Mother of God of Grace is presented in the very center of the altar.

The similar to this one, but only smaller, 1-tiered and four-columned altars are in the transept. A small fence of the altar is crowned with four images of angels.

In tote, the building of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel is more like a medieval castle that holds many age-old unsolved mysteries.