This shrine is a pilgrimage for a significant number of members of the religious community of Catholics of the Byzantine-Slavic rite. It was in 1631 that this Uniate temple housing the historic icon of the patron saint Nikita was erected. Near the sanctuary, an ecumenical center conducts retreats dedicated to the faithful from different fractions of Christianity.
Chapel of the Baptism of the Lord in Kostomłoty. Neo-Uniate chapel-church
it is built of stone and topped with five golden domes, decorated with polychrome.
There is a water source inside, in the form of a well.
And now a bit of history:
In Podlasie, those who belonged to the Greek Catholic Church, established in the eastern areas of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a result of the Union concluded in Brest in 1596 between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, were called Unity in Podlasie. The more common name is Greek Catholics. Greek Catholics recognize Catholic dogmas and the authority of the Pope, but maintain their own customs, such as the possibility of ordaining married men and the liturgical forms of the Eastern rite, their own canon law and calendar.
Under the rule of Tsarist Russia during the partitions, the Greek Catholic Church was liquidated and the Uniates were persecuted.
After regaining independence in Poland, the Uniate Church is slowly being reborn again, now known as Neo-Uniate, but no longer on Greek Catholic principles, but is almost identical to Orthodoxy.
It preserves the entire rituals of the Orthodox Church in its Russian version, i.e. the liturgy in the Old Church language and the synodal Orthodox rite. The only element that distinguished the Neounite Church from the Orthodox Church was the mention of the Pope in ektenias (litanies) and the canon of the Holy Mass.
However, national languages could be used in additional services: Polish, Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian. The clergy and laity of this rite are subordinate to local Roman Catholic bishops.
After World War II, the Polish People's Republic treated the Neo-Unites as dangerous Ukrainians and deported them to the Western Territories as part of Operation Vistula. As a result, only one parish remained in Poland - the parish of St. Nikita Męczennika in Kostomłoty, which still exists today.
According to statistical data from 2011, it had 147 believers, in 2017 124 believers, currently ...????
Translated by Google •
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