Green Velo

The abolition of the Uniate Church in the Kingdom of Poland by the tsarate and expanding the influence of the Orthodox Church did not always happen peacefully. In the area of the Bug, the Uniates resisted, making even the greatest sacrifice of their life.

This tragic event took place on 26 January 1874 in Pratulin, where tsarist troops fired on a crowd of parishioners assembled to defend their church against its takeover by the Orthodox clergy. Thirteen worshippers were killed, more than a hundred were injured and the church was later demolished. The victims of the massacre were beatified in 1996 as martyrs for the faith. Their relics are kept in the Pratuliny parish church, where in recent years the sanctuary of the Blessed Podlasie Martyrs was created. In a picturesque setting of Podlasie landscape a Way of the Cross was built and a second church was transferred from the Stanin community in the Łuków district and placed in the location of the demolished church. The wooden Orthodox church complex, with a bell tower and a fence with a gate, acts as the martyrium with the museum and documentation centre of the persecutions of the Podlasie Uniates.