Two Stones Under a Soviet Dump. What Remains of the 12th-Century Pyatnitskaya Church Adorned with Frescoes in the Residence of Polotsk Princes

Belchytsy Borisoglebsky Monastery in a drawing by Ivan Trutnev (1866). The Pyatnitskaya Church is on the right, and the foundations of the Great Cathedral are visible in the foreground. Nothing remains of the complex today. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Belchytsy Borisoglebsky Monastery was founded in the 12th century on the left bank of the Western Dvina and initially served as a fortified suburban residence for the Polotsk princes. This complex was very unusual: for a suburban monastery, the presence of four stone temples from that period (the Great Cathedral, the Borisoglebskaya and Pyatnitskaya Churches, as well as the unique triconch temple) is exceptionally rare.

Historians associate the construction of the Pyatnitskaya Church with the name of the prominent Polotsk architect Ioann, who later created the famous Savior Cathedral. It was a small, columnless, single-nave church of monumental proportions, built from red plinths on pink cement mortar using the traditional "hidden row" masonry technique.

Павялічыць

The Pyatnitskaya Church with an attached refectory and bell tower in a photograph from the early 20th century. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Beneath the building was a crypt which, according to some hypotheses, could have served as a burial place for Prince Boris Vseslavich, son of Vseslav Charadzei.

The long history of the monastery included periods of prosperity and complete desolation, transitions from Orthodox to Uniate and back again. Nevertheless, the Pyatnitskaya and the neighboring Borisoglebskaya Churches managed to stand until the early 20th century.

The post-war period proved fatal for them: after World War I, military warehouses were located on the monastery's territory, and the local population systematically began dismantling the church walls for bricks for their own household needs.

Павялічыць

As of 1928, the Pyatnitskaya Church was already a ruin, its walls still preserving ancient frescoes. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Павялічыць

Remains of frescoes, similar to those preserved in the Savior Church, on the walls of the Pyatnitskaya Church of the Belchytsy Monastery. Photographs from 1928. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In 1928, researcher Ivan Khozerov still managed to sketch fragments of fresco paintings on the remaining walls, but the buildings soon disappeared entirely. As a result of subsequent development of the territory, the exact location of the Pyatnitskaya Church was lost, and it was never studied during stationary archaeological excavations.

That is why, in 2025, a joint Belarusian-Russian expedition traveled to the site of the former monastery. The work was carried out by Polotsk archaeologists Alexey Kots and Igor Magalinsky from Polotsk State University, together with Russian researchers Evgeny Torshin and Pyotr Zykov, representing the State Hermitage Museum from St. Petersburg.

The scientists aimed to physically locate the lost foundations of the temple. The research results were presented at the International Scientific and Practical Conference on the Results of Archaeological Research in 2025.

Excavations of the Belchytsy Monastery. Photo: ruskline.ru

On the presumed site of the church, archaeologists laid a trench and an exploratory pit. The results showed extremely poor preservation of the building's lower parts.

The researchers managed to mark the boundary separating the exterior of the church from its interior, but the wall remains themselves were completely dismantled. Of the once mighty foundation, only two stones with lime mortar survived.

From the interior side of the temple, researchers discovered a deep pit that had long been used as a garbage dump. It functioned until the 1960s, gradually burying the historical outline of the shrine under urban waste.

Interestingly, at the very bottom of this dump, along the presumed wall, a brick masonry of five rows was uncovered, the exact purpose of which specialists still need to determine.

Despite the almost complete loss of the walls themselves, the expedition yielded important scientific data about the surrounding territory. On the exterior side of the Pyatnitskaya Church, archaeologists for the first time discovered a churchyard cemetery. A total of no less than ten burials were recorded, which, according to preliminary stratigraphic analysis, date back to the period of the 14th–16th centuries.

Another important find was the remains of brick masonry, discovered during the clearing next to the dump and in the exploratory pit. These fragments have been identified as the foundation of the refectory, which was later added to the church and is clearly visible in archival photographs from the beginning of the last century.

This collection of data finally allowed scientists to precisely link the location of the Pyatnitskaya Church to modern urban topography.

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