# The Seizure of the Viasialushy Church, Dunilavichy District

- URL: https://syn.by/en/history/archives/the-seizure-of-the-viasialushy-church-dunilavichy-district/
- Published: 1924-05-25T18:05:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-22T21:01:19+00:00
- Section: Archives
- Language: en
- BE edition: https://syn.by/historya/arkhivy/zachvat-viesialushskaje-carkvy-dunilavickaha-pavietu.md
- RU edition: https://syn.by/ru/istoriya/arhivy/zakhvat-vyesyelushskoy-tsyerkvi-dunilovichskogo-uyezda.md

> The district authorities gave an Orthodox church to the Catholics, although a delegation in Warsaw had been given a word that the matter would be reviewed. More than three thousand believers were left without a house of worship.

![](https://syn.by/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/illustration-966-1024x585.webp)

Nearly the whole of last year rumors went around among the parishioners of the Viasialushy church that several local Catholics, headed by the local landowner, were agitating and collecting signatures among the Catholic population for a petition to the Polish authorities to take the Viasialushy church away from the Orthodox. After that everything somehow seemed to fall quiet, but at the beginning of this year all the parishioners of the Viasialushy church painfully felt the consequences of the said agitation and petition. At the end of January of this year the priest of the Viasialushy church, Jarm. Survila, received an order from the district starosta that, on the basis of a directive of the Minister of Religious Denominations, the church building was being taken from the Orthodox as a former Catholic church (kościół) and as unnecessary to them, and was being handed over to the Catholics. On 6 February a delegation of parishioners of the Viasialushy church arrived in Warsaw, and on 7 February it was received by the director of the department of religious denominations, Mr. Piekarski; with the delegation were the deputy M. Kakhanovich and the senator V. Bahdanovich. The delegation explained to Mr. Piekarski that all the grounds on which the Ministry had decided to take the church were wholly unjust and did not correspond in the least to the actual state of affairs, and documents confirming all this were presented. Mr. Piekarski, having heard the delegation's arguments, promised to review the matter, and in addition gave his word that by telegram on that very same day he would halt the handing over of the church. The delegation believed the słowo honoru (word of honor) and, content, went home. But… the church was taken on the date set earlier, and together with it all the land and buildings.

The intervention in this matter by Senator Bahdanovich revealed that Mr. Piekarski had not sent a telegram, but had instructed Mr. Strzałkowski, his assistant, to send a written order about it to the Government Delegate in the Vilnia region, Mr. Roman, which in any case would not have arrived in time. But, in the end, even this order was not carried out, because Delegate Roman himself happened to be in Warsaw at that time and, having met with Strzałkowski, persuaded him not to send the order mentioned.

Soon the church was solemnly consecrated as a Catholic church (kościół). Into the new Catholic parish, together with "dead souls," about 700 souls were registered. And the Orthodox parishioners, more than 3000 people, were left without a church, church land and buildings, which they had built with their own hands, not counting the parishioners of the neighboring Stara-Miadzel parish, where the church was likewise taken away.