Those who stake on pilgrimage tours to Poland will be able to visit the shrines of Orthodoxy and Catholicism located on the territory of this country and get acquainted with the holy places of the Poles.
Hill of Crosses (Grabarka)
This shrine is a place of pilgrimage on the cross in Poland: every year on August 19, pilgrims from Bialystok come here - they carry wooden crosses on their shoulders (the journey takes 3 days). Having reached the mountain overgrown with pine trees, the believers go around the temple built here and erect their crosses, where they remain until they decay. At the foot of the mountain, you can find an old spring - a rotunda was erected over it to protect the water from dust and dirt.
In the summer, pilgrims can stay in tents in one of the fields designated for this purpose.
Supral monastery
Within the walls of this monastery, not a single polemical composition was created and written (relics in the form of the Suprasl manuscript and chronicle originated from the monastery). The central place in the monastery complex is occupied by the Annunciation Cathedral - it is a five-tower composition (30 fragments of frescoes preserved here are now exhibited in the Museum of Icons).
In the Suprasl Monastery, pilgrims will learn about Orthodox traditions, and will also visit the Museum of Icons (it is a repository of 1200 images). A tour of the museum is carried out with musical accompaniment and special lighting.
Bialystok
As part of the pilgrimage tour, believers visit over 10 churches in the city, among which the following stand out:
- Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker: its main shrines are represented by the icon of the Mother of God of Bialystok and the relics of Gabriel of Bialystok. In addition, you can see here frescoes created by Mikhail Anilov in 1910.
- Temple of the Holy Spirit: outwardly it looks like a flame, which symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. The temple is the largest Orthodox church in the country (it has black onion domes).
- Church of Saint Sophia of the Wisdom of God: it is an exact copy of the Church of Sophia in Constantinople on a scale of 1: 3, and is famous for its Byzantine-style frescoes.
Czestochowa
Numerous pilgrims flock to Czestochowa to visit the Yasnogorsk Monastery and kneel before the “Black Virgin” icon (written by the Apostle Luke), which is kept in the chapel of the Virgin Mary. It should be noted that the grand opening of the icon is carried out at certain hours: on weekdays - at 6 am and 13:30; on weekends and holidays - at 6 am and at 2 pm.
Other buildings adjoin the monastery, including the Knights' Hall (here you can see the altar of John the Evangelist - work of the 18th century), a library (stores many manuscripts and 8000 old books; the ceiling of the library is decorated with frescoes by an unknown Italian master; the room is used for conferences of the Polish Catholic episcopate) and a 106-meter bell tower (a staircase with more than 500 steps leads upstairs) - together they occupy an area of 5 hectares (they are surrounded by a park).
