The Temple of St. Luke in the village of Domachevo

Domachevo location is an urban settlement situated in the south of Brest district in close proximity to the state boarder with Poland.

One of the village’s attractions is the Temple of St. Luke constructed in 1905 on the place of the former temple.

The first Orthodox Church (originally constructed as a Uniate church) in Domachevo appeared in 1788. It was made of wood and funded by the church people. There was a chapel at the temple.

The temple in Domachevo is one of the largest wooden churches on the territory of Belarus. The temple has a capacity of up to one thousand and a half people. Remarkably, there are only two temples consecrated in honor of the apostle Luke on the territory of Belarus. The second one is situated on the territory of Brest region – in the location of Luka of Kobrin district.

The laity of the temple comprises a number of locations including Borisy, Lipinki, Dubitsa, Shikili, Bogdany and Podluzhye.

The Temple of St. Luke was erected in pseudo Russian style that was wide-spread in the XIX and early XX centuries.

The belfry of the temple has three tiers and it is located under the log-house of the rectangular porch and crowned with dome like an onion. The top sides of the belfry are decorated with semi-columns and balustrades.

The central part of the temple presents a cube that is crowned with an octangular light cylinder, it is also onion domed. The temple apse is lower and has five sides. The porch has six thin pillars with a triangular attic at the top.

There are numerous icons inside the temple; some of them were painted as early as in the XVIII century. Among them, there are the icons of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, “The Quick to Hearken”, of St. Seraphim of Sarov and others.

Inside the temple, there are eight twin columns. There is a carved iconostasis with three tiers behind them; there is the icon of Pochaev Mother of God above the holy gates of it. On the feast days of the Mother of God, the icon is placed lower so that church people could pay their respect to it.

Today, the sorority in honor of the Great Martyr and the Healer Panteleimon functions at the Temple of St. Luke in Domachevo. There are also a Sunday school and a library.

The Patron Saint’s Day is celebrated on 31 October, on the feast day of St. Luke, in honor of whom the temple in the urban settlement was consecrated.

The apostle Luke is the faithful friend of the apostle Paul. He is the author of the third book of the New Testament known as the Holy Gospel of Luke – one of the canonical four Gospels. He also wrote the Acts of the Apostles – one of the books of the New Testament that describes events after those mentioned in the Gospels.

St. Luke who lived in the I century was a doctor, and today he is the patron of all representatives of this profession. The apostle is also considered to be the first icon painter; there was the image of the Mother of God on his icon. In this regard, he is the patron of all painters.