Janów Poleski is a town associated with the commemoration of St Andrew Bobola. It was here, on 16 May 1657, during the Polish-Russian War (1654-1667), that Bobola, as a Jesuit missionary, suffered martyrdom at the hands of Cossacks supporting Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The saint's biography mentions that shortly after his death his corpse was laid to rest in a church in Janów. In fact, however, it was a Uniate church. This is confirmed by the testimony of the parish priest of the Eastern rite of Janów, Fr Jan Zaleski, included in the files of the beatification process of Andrzej Bobola.

First Roman Catholic Church in Janów
The first Roman Catholic church in Janov (a private town located in the Pinsk district of the Brest-Litovsk voivodeship) was erected in 1663 with the foundation of the Polotsk voivode Jan Karol Kopec. Probably the reason for its construction was the desire to commemorate the martyrdom of the Jesuit, especially since - when allocating the bequest to the Jesuit college in Pinsk - the founder conditioned it on the preaching of sermons by the Pinsk Jesuits on major feasts in Janov, as the place of Andrew Bobola's death. This church was a small wooden building. Less than a hundred years later, in 1752-1754, it was replaced by another, also small, wooden church erected with funds from the starost of Zhalskyi, Aleksandr Apolini Szujski.

Architecture of the present church in Janov
The present brick church was built on the initiative of the parish priest Fr Casimir Pallulon (1793-1859) in 1842-1848, and is characterised by the universal forms of simplified, functional classicism. The towerless façade with simple frame divisions is topped by a stepped gable, below which a small semicircular window is placed on the axis. The present finial, although the result of a contemporary renovation, strongly resembles the original form. The anonymous architect was inspired by the most popular classicist forms spread by the pattern books of typical designs by Chrystian Piotr Aigner and Hilary Szpilowski. Simple layouts on a rectangular plan with column porticoes prevail, which are reminiscent, for example, of the Vilnius Cathedral, rebuilt according to a design by Wawrzyniec Gucewicz. The Janów church differs from classical designs in having a gable with a stepped pedestal and lacking a triangular pediment.

A short history of the church in Janov
In the 19th century the church was continuously open. In 1948 it was closed by the Soviet authorities and used as a grain warehouse. The Baroque image of the Virgin Mary, the only surviving element from the old church, was transferred to the Janov Orthodox Church after 1948, where it remains to this day. Since 1956, the church has been used as a community centre - the interior was then rebuilt. The devastated church was returned to worshippers in 1995. It was gradually and thoroughly repaired, partly rebuilt and transformed. It has served as a church again since 2000. In 2013, by decree of the Bishop of Pinsk, the shrine of St Andrew Bobola was established here.

Commemoration of the place of martyrdom of St. Andrew Bobola
. In the church cemetery there are two twin chapels built in 2001 in the corners of the fence. They refer to the chapel commemorating the place of the martyrdom of St. Andrew Bobola, destroyed after 1948, which was erected before 1848. It was immortalised in 1861 on a drawing made by Napoleon Orda.

The Russians destroyed it in 1863, but it was rebuilt (1926) according to the surviving drawings. The work was financed by Konstantin Skirmuntt of Molodov. A painted representation of the martyr was placed in it. The chapel was consecrated on 17 May 1926, during the ceremony of bringing the partial relics of Andrzej Bobola to Janov. Outside the town there was also a wooden cross, which was placed, according to local tradition, on the site of the saint's capture.

Relic of St. Andrew Bobola
. Thanks to the efforts of the Bishop of Pinsk, Zygmunt Łoziński, and the Jesuit Fathers: the Provincial, Fr Stanisław Sopuch, and the General, Fr Włodzimierz Ledóchowski, relics of Andrzej Bobola were obtained for Janów from Rome in May 1926. Placed in a brass neo-Baroque reliquary, they were transported to Pinsk and handed over to Bishop Zygmunt Łoziński. On the anniversary of Blessed Andrzej Bobola's death (16 May), in a solemn procession, the relics were transported to Janów by a special train, and then carried to the field altar erected on the main square. Along the way, a service was held at the roadside cross erected at the site of the saint's capture. Numerous clergy and representatives of the local community took part in the ceremony.

The reliquary was then placed in the Janów church in the main altar in a special wooden casing. When the Soviet authorities closed the church (1948), the reliquary was transferred to Pinsk Cathedral. It was not until 2001 that Cardinal Kazimierz Świątek, Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Pinsk, returned it to the church in Janów.

Helena Skirmuntt - co-author of the altar crucifix
. The most interesting monument currently in the Janów parish church is the altar crucifix. It was found in 1995 in the vaults of Pinsk Cathedral and donated by Cardinal Kazimierz Świątek to the newly recovered church in Janów. A plaque attached to the base of the cross speaks of the authors of the work. It is the joint work of the sculptor and participant in the January Uprising, a courier in Romuald Traugutt's unit, Helena Skirmunttowa (1827-1874), and her uncle Napoleon Orda (1807-1883) - painter and draughtsman, author of more than a thousand views of architecture, baptised in the Janów church. The crucifix was the property of Helena's mother, Hortensja née Orda.

Born in the Kolodny estate near Pinsk, Helena Skirmunttowa came from a landed gentry family with artistic ambitions. She studied painting in Vilnius, Berlin and Dresden. Under the influence of Napoleon Orda and the sculptor Władysław Oleszczyński, she began to take an interest in sculpture, which she studied in Vienna and Rome. She was the author of numerous drawings, landscape and architectural sketches and portraits. She devoted herself to sacred art - with the help of the self-taught painter Konstantin Radyka from Vilnius, she restored damaged paintings from Pinsk churches and repaired embroideries in liturgical vestments. Helena Skirmunttowa's best-known sculptural work was the so-called historical chessboard with figures depicting figures from Polish history.

For religious reasons, she considered the subject of the crucifix the most important for her and was the author of several of its realisations. The Passion Play (1871) from the Janów crucifix is the last of the series. It went, probably after Helena's death, to Pinsk, where her uncle Napoleon Orda made a carved cross in 1878. The crucifix from Janów is the only surviving work by Skirmunttowa, the others being known only from photographs.