Manorial chapel in Jablonov (Shchitsyce) - St John the Baptist chapel, built in the second half of the 18th century as a manorial chapel at the residence of the Jablonovskis of Prus III coat of arms in Jablonov Litewski (now Shchitsyce in the Mostov region of the Grodno region of the Republic of Belarus, about 4 km east of Lunna). The baroque-classicist building is modelled on the Holy Trinity Church in Volchin. Unused, it is currently in a state of far-reaching ruin.

History
It was built as a private chapel in connection with the newly erected Lithuanian residence of Duke Jozef Aleksander Jablonowski, then Grand Constable of Lithuania. Sources referring to its founder refer to it as the castle chapel, and its centralising architectural form and the presence of a crypt clearly indicate that it was intended as a burial place for the owners of the estate. The construction of the chapel began in 1748, using a blueprint of the local late Baroque Holy Trinity Church sent from Wolczyn as a model. The design of the local Late Baroque Holy Trinity Church was used as a model. The walls were probably erected by the second half of the 1750s, when Jozef Aleksander Jablonowski moved permanently to the castle in Lachowce in Volhynia, but work on the decoration and furnishings was not continued. The prince, in his will drawn up in 1771, ordered his successors to "complete the construction of the church in Jablonov Litewski". As a result, in the following years it was given an exterior decoration in the style of early classicism. It was probably paid for by Józef Aleksander's nephew, the Poznań Voivode Antoni Barnaba Jabłonowski.

From the moment of its construction, the chapel served two rites at the same time - Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic - as a private manorial chapel of the Latin rite and a shrine to the Basilian monastic mission of the Lithuanian province, founded by Jablonowski in 1750. According to an inscription once placed on the palace gate, the owner of the residence, out of concern for his subjects of two faiths, founded here "for the peace of the people, altars of both rites". The chapel was the venue for family wedding ceremonies: in December 1750, the Duke's stepdaughter Anna Paulina Sapieżanka married Jan Kajetan Jabłonowski, later Voivode of Bracław, and on 5 August 1766 Józef Aleksander Jabłonowski himself married Franciszka Wiktoria Voronecka.

The fate of the chapel in the first third of the 19th century is unknown. In 1831, the shrine was closed and later taken over by the Orthodox Church. After a deputation was appointed to settle the question of the chapel's belonging, it was handed over to the Sophia Brotherhood of Grodno in 1839. In 1860, it was returned to Catholics and was probably then attached as a branch to St Anne's parish in Lunna in the Grodno decanate. In 1874, preparations were under way to renovate and open the chapel, which, however, did not ultimately take place. The furnishings (paintings and paraments) were transferred to the church in Lunna. At the beginning of the 20th century, the building suffered a lightning strike, when the roof with lantern, ceiling and the remains of the furnishings burned down. The then Russian owner of the estate undertook repair work with the intention of converting it into an Orthodox chapel. However, the renovation was interrupted by the outbreak of war and, as a result, the chapel was never used as an Orthodox church. During the First World War many families, refugees from nearby villages, found shelter there. After 1918, the chapel was listed as belonging to the Lunna parish, but was not used for liturgical purposes until 1945. Total devastation of the building took place during the Soviet era.

Architecture
The chapel, standing alone in a field, by the road from Kosilovy on the Lunna-Volpa highway, is located on the south-western outskirts of the village of Shchyrets. It faces north-east, towards the now non-existent palace, once situated some 200 m to the east, at the top of the slope of the Nemunas River bed. The Baroque brick building was built on a central octagonal ground plan. The exterior has a square ground plan with chamfered corners, and the interior has a Greek cross plan, achieved by inserting in the corners of the building triangularly enclosed annexes, which once housed oval, originally two-storey galleries with balconies and stairs. A crypt was located underneath the whole. The facades have been given an early classicist decoration, executed in white plaster and small fragments of dark brown, blackened turf ore. The walls have a pebbled texture and frame divisions of smooth plaster, and the corners imitate horizontal rustication. They are surmounted by a beam, with an architrave on the wall axes segmentally curved above the window openings. Above the crowning beam is a frieze with a white meander against a dark band of turf ore pieces. The longer walls are divided by pairs of slender Ionic pilasters in great order. The wall axes are pierced vertically by two windows each: rectangular, closed with a semicircle, and with oculus above them. Originally, in the ground floor of the corner walls there were also panels pierced in the upper part in the form of thermal windows (now the lower parts of these walls are completely pierced). The entrance opening in the north-east elevation was distinguished by a portal with two Tuscan semi-columns. Inside, the walls are divided into two tiers at the height of two-thirds, defined by a prominent circular beam, broken above the central windows of the longer walls. The lower part is divided by pilasters with simplified Ionic heads, framing the windows and wall corners. The upper part is articulated with lisens. In the arcade window arcades and in the frieze of the beam, relics of classicist wall paintings with garland motifs have survived. Originally, the chapel was covered by a pyramidal tile roof topped by a squat little bell turret with a cupola. It was surrounded by a fence with brick pillars planted with Italian poplars. Today, the disused building remains in ruins. The roof is missing, it has a collapsed floor and vaulted crypt, and the lower parts of the corner walls are punctured, which has completely distorted the original shape of the openings.

Artistic values of the chapel
Against the background of Jozef Aleksander Jablonowski's modest religious foundations, the chapel in Jablonov Litewski stood out both for its compositional concept, coupled with the overall spatial concept of the residence, and for its form itself. The chapel was located on the periphery of the estate, facing the palace, and was connected to it by an axis marked by an avenue, of which several old lime trees have survived to this day. The baroque body of the central plan was inspired by the church in Wolczyn, built from the foundation of Stanisław Poniatowski in 1729-1733, according to a design by Jan Zygmunt Deybl. In the Jablonov chapel, its ground plan and spatial design, dimensions, body proportion and wall disposition were literally repeated. On the other hand, the early classicist decoration of the façade, realised after 1771, belongs stylistically to a new era and is probably one of the earliest examples of classicism in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It consists of rectangular panels filled with small, irregular fragments of blackened turf ore contrasted with white plaster. The panels have been positioned on the plinths and pilaster heads, where they are decorated with foliate rosettes, and between the central windows and the oculi of the longer walls with the motif of a gartered shawl. On the corner walls, between the central windows and the oculi, there were plaster panels with rosettes, buttons and teardrops. The designer of the decoration is unknown. He should most probably be sought among the architects employed by Antoni Barnaba Jabłonowski, for whom, among others, Jakub Fontana and Dominik Merlini worked.