Grodno's Bernardine ensemble is located on the right bank of the Nemunas River and occupies the top of a high hill at the junction of Batory and Komuny Paryskiej Streets. The former Bernardian Church of the Discovery of the Holy Cross, uninterrupted since its foundation, is now the oldest Roman Catholic church in the city.

The foundation and establishment of the Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross. Finding of the Holy Cross Church
The oldest document connected with the Bernardine monks of Grodno dates back to 15 February 1494, when Alexander Jagiellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania, granted them the site of the former princely manor - a square with a garden and an orchard located on the bank of the Nemunas River. For unknown reasons, the intended foundation did not come to fruition and was not realised until a century later.

The first Bernardine friars arrived in Hrodna in 1595, and the construction of their residence took more than twenty years. Sources record many donors to the Grodno ensemble of Bernardines. According to local legend, a significant contribution to the construction of the temple was made by soldiers of the Crown and Lithuanian armies who, while marching through Grodno, passed a resolution that "each knight from a horse's hoof should give a thaler for the fund and the church factory", which amounted to a substantial sum of 4008 florins. Thanks to these donations, the construction could continue and the newly built church was consecrated on 13 May 1618 by the Bishop of Vilnius, Eustace Vollovich, which is commemorated by a plaque embedded in one of the pillars.

Construction phases of the Bernardine Church
The body of the church was built in several phases, so it bears the signs of different style eras. The oldest, still Gothic, is represented by the presbytery, which is part of the first church built in 1595-1600, probably following the canon set by Grodno's Parish Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as Vytautas Parish Church. The next stage in the formation of the ensemble should be associated with the Lublin masons and the Lublin Bernardine Church, which should be taken as a direct model for the Grodno church.

In 1753, less than a century later, Grodno was hit by two major fires, which also destroyed the Bernardine monastery: the roofs of the church and monastery burned down, the structure of the bell tower was damaged, the bells were destroyed, and all the wooden outbuildings burned down. The damage was soon repaired and it is likely that during the construction work carried out at the time, the two upper tiers of the belfry inspired by the Vilnius Baroque were put up, and a clock with chimes was installed on the rebuilt tower.

Interior design
The 1880s was a time of extensive work on new interior decoration and furnishings. It was at that time that the current set of altars was created, among which the main altar stands out for its grandeur and form, filling the semicircular space enclosing the presbytery. The main altar contains a wooden crucifix with stucco statues of the Virgin Mary, St John and kneeling St Mary Magdalene, while the sculptural decoration is complemented by the statues of St Dominic in a pallid mantle and St Francis of Assisi in the side aisles.

The character of the interior is definitely determined by the furnishings with Baroque-Classical stylistic features. However, it is worth remembering that earlier elements have also been preserved in the church. These include, for example, the stucco decoration of the Loretto chapel dating from the 1780s, which, despite unfortunate additions and successive layers of whitewash, is very interesting in terms of both its content and the forms of the sculptural groups depicted.

Before the middle of the 18th century, a large organ with a prospect of five huge polygonal towers was built. Each of the towers was topped by a high pedestal with large statues: Christ with a scale and globe in the middle tower, and Bernardine saints on the others. Among the wall paintings, the largest representation was an elaborate scene above the rainbow arch, depicting the Assumption of Mary and the accompanying figures of kneeling saints and popes. Both the painting and the above-mentioned prospectus no longer exist and are known only from archival sources and old photographs.

Further history of the Bernardine Church in Grodno
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bernardine monastery hosted meetings of the nobility of the Grodno district, and the fact that these meetings were sometimes stormy is evidenced by a resolution from 1715, which ordered the monks to pay 300 zlotys as compensation for broken benches.

The church became a parish church on 14 August 1852, even before the formal suppression of the monastery. The monks went, among others, to Iwia; two remained in Grodno, serving as chaplains in the Grodno congregations of the Bernardine and Brigidine nuns.

In the post-Bernardine temple, on 2 November 1894, the wedding of Eliza Orzeszkowa, née Pawlowska, and her second husband, the Grodno lawyer Stanislaw Nahorski, took place. A commemorative plaque in honour of the writer was built into one of the pillars of the temple in modern times (1991).

The 20th century
In the interwar years, the immediate surroundings of the church changed - the brick wall of the former burial cemetery was thoroughly renovated, and the gate from the street to the church yard was rebuilt, which also received iron grilles on two sides, made in the local Craft School of the Polish Educational Society.

In 1941, as a result of artillery shelling, the vaulting over the western part of the church collapsed. The magnificent 18th-century organ and three Baroque altars from the former St Barbara's chapel disappeared under the rubble. The fire destroyed the roof of the church and the helmet of the tower, and the outbuildings were also partially burnt down. The monastery survived the conflagration without major changes. After the Second World War, it housed laboratories, court offices and a sanitary and epidemiological station.

On 17 August 1990, the authorities in Hrodna returned the former Bernardian monastery to the Church, and on 1 September of that year the Higher Theological Seminary, founded by Bishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, officially began operating within its walls.