Narvilliškės is known, among other things, for its 'Be2gether' rock concerts, which took place right next to the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. There is also a border fence not far behind the Franciscan monastery. It is therefore worth learning about the history of this site located in the former Polish lands.

Narviliškės is a village situated right next to the present-day Lithuanian-Belarusian border. This area is the so-called "Dziewienski sack", i.e. a part of Lithuania surrounded almost entirely by Belarusian territory. In 1507, the village belonged to the manor of Surviliškės. In 1589. the then owner, Jan Surwiła, sold the settlement to Wojciech Szorc of Mora coat of arms, a representative of a family originating from Ducal Prussia. The centre of the Narviliškiai estate was the manor house, built in the 16th century, expanded and bricked up at the expense of Vojtech and his wife, Dorothy of Zenovichs, famous for her beauty.

Franciscans in Narvilliškės
Wojciech Szorc died in 1608 in Inflants during the Polish-Swedish war. At that time, his wife brought the Conventual Franciscans from Vilnius and, in 1617, by a foundation act, gave them the Narviliškės manor and the nearby village of Pecinės (now in Belarus), a total of 27 wads of land (about 485 ha). In the collection of the Lithuanian National Museum in Vilnius (Lietuvos nacionalinis muziejus) there is a portrait of Dorothea Szorcowa (oil on tin) from the period of the monastery's foundation. Below the image of the foundress with the Virgin Mary and St Francis is a rhymed inscription:

"Through the intercession of Fr Iez Francis the Saint
May you receive what I give of your poverty
Church, Poor Monastery, which she founded,
That I may give my soul a place in heaven
Please be Iezu oicem. Also your Mother
Holy Virgin, be my protector.

Dorotha Zienowiczowna Woiciechowa Szorcowa,
Foundress of Narvilliškės, in the year 1618 on 23 January".

Additional bequests to the monastery were included in the founder's will (dated 1620). The existing brick manor house of the Szorc family was intended to house the monks. It was a one-storey building with thick walls, a basement, built on a rectangular plan with two two-storey towers in the corners. At the end of the 18th century, the monastery building was restored by Kazimierz Kamiński.

According to the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries (vol. VI, 1885): "Narwiliszki [...] in the former oszmiański district, in a beautiful location on a lofty mountain. In 1617. Dorota of Zenovich Szorcowa built here a small monastery and a wooden church for the Franciscans", from 1689. - parish church. Another, also wooden, church was built in 1745.

In the early days, eight monks lived in the Narviliškės monastery, but in the following years there were two (1797), three (1820) and in 1830 six. Documents from the beginning of the 19th century preserve the names of some monks. These were the fathers: the guardian Petrus Braunn, the collector Dawid Niecikowski, the preachers Protus Paszkiewicz and Adrianus Dzierżak. The monastery also had a library of 224 books (284 volumes), including two items from the 16th century and eighteen from the 17th century.

Turbulent fate of the Narviškiai Franciscan monastery and church
. The Narviliškės parish belonged to the Šumava deanery and in 1781 numbered 779 believers. At the beginning of the 19th century, the local parish school was usually attended by a few pupils.

As part of the repressions following the suppression of the November Uprising, the monastery was closed by the Russian authorities in 1832, while the church was demolished and the parish liquidated. The Franciscans moved to Novogrudok. The building material from the Narvillis church was used to build an Orthodox church in nearby Holshany. The monastery building was adapted to house a Russian artillery unit between 1846 and 1850. Two-storey barracks were built nearby.

From 1904, the monastery and the barracks buildings were occupied by a three-year private agricultural school for girls, which operated until 1915. In 1919, the buildings of the former monastery and barracks were taken over by local residents, whose efforts led to the construction of a new Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Mercy in Narviliškės between 1922 and 1929.

In the interwar period, the historic monastery housed a vicarage. From 1934 to 1939, Father Stefan Kiwiński, a graduate of the Faculty of Theology of Stefan Batory University in Vilnius, was the parish priest of Narvillis. He had previously ministered in Komai, Hoża, Grodno, Ejszyszki, Kiryanovce. During the war he became a chaplain of the 2nd Corps of General Władysław Anders. In June 1944, before the start of Operation "Gates of Dawn", the commander of the Vilnius district of the Home Army, Lt. Col Aleksander Krzyżanowski "Wilk", installed his field headquarters in nearby Dziewieniszki and surrounding villages. In 1945, the parish was liquidated by the Bolsheviks.

Contemporary fate of the former Franciscan complex in Narviškiai
Today the historic complex in Narviliškės consists of the former monastery building, the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Mercy, built in the Zakopane style according to the project of arch. It was built in the Zakopane style according to a design by arch. Władysław Obuch, on the site of the former church, which was demolished by the Russians, and a gate tower, which at one time also served as a bell tower.

After the Second World War, the monastery building remained unused for many years. Unfortunately, in 2005-2008, in disregard of all conservation rules, it was subjected to a drastic reconstruction for use as a hotel building. In the course of this, the polygonal corner towers were rounded off, pseudo-Renaissance arcades were added to both longer facades, above which is a terrace with an openwork wooden balustrade. Archaeological work carried out around the monastery has established that other buildings also existed there.

Nowadays, various cultural events take place on the glade in front of the monastery, and tiny Narviliškės is the most famous village in the municipality of Nidzavis. However, in the local cemetery, as in almost all cemeteries in the historical Vilnius region, one can find historical Polish gravestones.

A few dozen metres from the historic Franciscan monastery stretches a razor-wire metal fence separating united Europe from A. Lukashenko-ruled Belarus.