Shereshevo village in the Pruzhany district of the Brest region occupies a special place in the list of Belarusian sights. Two beautiful temples are located here — a Catholic church and an Orthodox one. And in that village, the Shereshevo Gospel was stored. It is the Belarusian manuscript monument of the 16th century, which is now part of the National Art Museum’s exposition. There are many magnificent Catholic churches in our country (we have already written about the most interesting of them), however, Trinity Church in the village of Shereshevo also deserves your attention.

Shereshevo’s history

The history of Shereshevo village is full of events, because the village is already more than 600 years old! That settlement was first mentioned in 1380, when the famous Prince Vytautas presented it to the gentry Nikolai Nasuta. 

Then the possessions were passed from hand to hand:

• after the Nasutas the village was owned by the Zabtezinsky,

• then the power passed to the Ilyinichs,

• when Queen Bona Sforza passed through that area, she bought it from the Ilyinichs. The queen gave the village the Magdeburg Law.

The wars with Moscovia and then with the Northern War led Shereshevo to decline. When the following owners, the Flemings ruled Shereshevo, the village received its own coat of arms. Otherwise, Shereshevo’s fate was the same as the fate of the most other villages in Belarus: it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, the Polish state, the BSSR and then became the part of modern sovereign Belarus.

An interesting fact from VETLIVA: many people still call the country Belorussia. Do you want to know why it is wrong? Read our article about Belarus.

The Catholic parish in Shereshevo

Catholic church appeared in Shereshevo thanks to the efforts of the local Catholic nobility in 1848. At that time, the construction of Orthodox churches was actively sponsored, so Trinity Church was the only Catholic church in Pruzhany. In the 1850-1860s the walls of the temple were decorated with frescoes. The paintings depicted angels with musical instruments in their hands.

Church services were conducted there for many years until the era of the Soviet atheism. After the end of World War II, the temple was closed. The building was used as a warehouse. Only at the end of the last century, the church came to life again, church services are conducted there again.

An interesting fact from VETLIVA: many churches of Belarus were used for other purposes. For example, the visiting card of Minsk — the Red church, which is deservedly included in the top 50 attractions of Minsk, had been used as a warehouse for Dom Kino for a long time. The famous Fara Vitovta, which, unfortunately, is included in the list of Belarus’s lost heritage, after being used for other purposes, was recognized as a subject that couldn’t be restored and the church was destroyed...

The architectural appearance of Trinity Church

Trinity Church in the urban village of Shereshevo is the architectural monument of the late classicism era, which is deservedly included in the State List of Historical and Cultural Values ​​of the Republic of Belarus. In terms of architecture, it is a rectangular building, which is covered by a gable roof. The main facade is framed by two massive but graceful towers, which are made in rectangular shape too, with tented finishes and arched openings in the upper part. Two arched wooden sculptures adorn the side arched niches. By the way, the similar sculptures are installed in rectangular niches on the side faces of the lower part of the towers.

The internal composition of the architectural monument is divided by the six columns into three naves, over which cylindrical arches rise. A semicircular window is located above the entrance to the temple, through this window the choirs are illuminated. The altar is made in the form of the Corinthian colonnade, there are two vestries on both sides of the altar.

Be sure to take photos of the beautiful temple! There are many photogenic places in Belarus, and this is definitely one of them. Not far from the temple there are two chapels in the Empire style. All lovers of Belarusian architecture will definitely like them!