Researchers were wrong for decades about the church in Budslaŭ. Archaeological finds refuted old theories

For a long time, it was believed that the Chapel of St. Barbara in the northwest corner of the Budslaŭ Church, which even has a separate entrance, was the old church integrated into the new Baroque temple. However, recent archaeological research refutes this long-held theory. Photo: minoblturism.gov.by

The impetus for new research was the necessity to save the monument. After a severe fire that destroyed the roof of the modern Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a comprehensive engineering survey of the sanctuary began. During geological works, necessary for making decisions on strengthening the foundations, previously unknown walls were suddenly discovered inside the Chapel of St. Barbara.

As it turned out, these were the apse foundations of an earlier Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built by the Bernardines back in 1633–1643. To accurately understand its architecture and true location, full-scale archaeological excavations were carried out in the summer of 2025 under the direction of Andrey Miatelsky, a researcher from the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

Officially, the results of this work were presented at the end of April 2026 at an international scientific conference in Nesvizh.

Refuting the old theory

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Previous notions that the old church (red) was integrated into the volume of the new church (brown) are refuted by recent archaeological research. Drawings from pre-project investment documentation

For a long time, historiography was dominated by the belief that the old stone church from the first half of the 17th century was entirely incorporated into the volume of the magnificent new temple, erected at the end of the 18th century.

Researchers, including Maria Kałamajska-Saeed in the early 1990s and Ihar Surmachaŭski in our days, agreed that the building entirely or partially coincided with the dimensions of the current Chapel of St. Barbara.

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Localization of the old church according to Kałamajska-Saeed (1992). Photo: "Naračanščyna | Naračanski kraj" Telegram channel

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Localization of the old church according to Sumračaŭski (2022). Photo: "Naračanščyna | Naračanski kraj" Telegram channel

However, excavations showed that this was a mistaken belief. The modern church partially overlaps the site of the old church but does not incorporate its walls. A significant part of the 1643 temple, including its narthex, extends far beyond the limits of the modern altar section.

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Fragment of the foundations of the faceted apse part of the old church, discovered during excavations inside today's Chapel of St. Barbara. Photo: Institute of History of NASB Telegram channel

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The narthex of the old church, discovered far beyond the limits of the modern temple. Photo: Institute of History of NASB Telegram channel

The old church and the chapel of the new church have the same orientation — their apse is oriented to the east, and the entrance towards the Serwach river, while the huge Baroque temple has the opposite orientation — its main facade faces the town's market square.

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Localization of the old church according to the archaeological research of 2025. Photo: "Naračanščyna | Naračanski kraj" Telegram channel

What the first stone temple was like

According to the data announced by archaeologists, the first stone temple in Budslaŭ was a single-nave building about 31 meters long and about 11 meters wide. It ended in a faceted apse and had a narthex, although the latter is inexplicably absent from the known surviving drawings of the temple from the early 18th century.

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Drawing of the old church from the monastery's handwritten chronicle. 1767. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Beneath the entire volume of the church were vaults, where a crypt for the burials of monks and founders was located.

Judging by the material found during excavations, the temple was covered with massive roof tiles, and its windows were adorned with stained glass in colored glass — blue, red, and yellow. The interior floor was laid with stone slabs, and the inner walls were plastered and painted in a warm ochre color.

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The old church in Budslaŭ in a 1650 drawing. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The mystery of the perspective altar

New archaeological data also resolve another long-standing architectural discrepancy related to the main treasure of the Chapel of St. Barbara — the unique wooden perspective altar from the mid-17th century, created by master Piotr Hramel. Through a complex optical illusion, evidently inspired by Italian Baroque architecture, it visually expanded the space of the small temple, creating artificial depth.

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The perspective altar in Budslaŭ. Photo: welcome-belarus.ru

In autumn 2024, this altar began to be carefully dismantled for restoration, with the aim of returning it to its original, wider appearance. Previously, it remained unclear why this masterpiece "did not fit" into the volume of the chapel if it was the old church.

The discovery by archaeologists leads to a logical conclusion — this altar had no connection to the Chapel of St. Barbara but was, apparently, located in the faceted apse of the wider old church, which was completely dismantled during the construction of the large basilica. When installing the altar in the narrower chapel, which also had a rectangular shape, the altar had to be crudely adapted to the new dimensions.

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