The text describes Kolozha, located near Grodno, the monastery of Saints Boris and Hleb, which was granted by Alexander Jagiellon and Sigismund I. The history of the monastery is briefly recalled, and a detailed description of the temple, both externally and internally, is provided (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1887, Series 4, T:10, p. 142, after: University of Lodz Digital Library).

A modernised reading of the text

Kolozha near Grodno.

The Order of the Rule of St Basil the Great of the Eastern Rite, founded around the middle of the v. IV, spread very rapidly not only in the East, but also in southern Europe. In Naples alone, there were already around 500 monasteries of this rule during the founder's lifetime. Much later, but almost simultaneously with the introduction of the Christian faith, the Order of St Basil appeared on the lower Dnieper and the upper reaches of the Nemunas. This probably happened in the 10th century, and from the 11th century onwards there is already historical evidence of some monasteries. Such ancient monasteries on and near the Neman River, dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries, include the Basilian church in Novogrudok, Kolozha near Grodno and Lavrishchev between Shchorsy and Lyubcha.

Despite its long existence, the Kolozha monastery of Sts. Boris and Hleb did not make any particular mark in history, except for the endowments made to it by Alexander Jagiellon and Sigismund I. The monastery was founded in 1596. After 1596, following the adoption of the union, there was an archimandrite, or separate abbey, which has been maintained to the present day. During the time of the educational commission and the university of Vilnius, the Basilians of Kolozėnai, as in many other monasteries, maintained a parish school here.

This is the end of the history of the Kolozėnai monastery; however, the small local church, now in ruins, has been and will continue to be a subject of curiosity for researchers. It is a very special monument of the Byzantine style. The thin walls of the red-brick building, were externally dotted with multi-coloured glazed crosses, while inside it had about a hundred long-necked pots, facing the interior with unsealed openings. The purpose of these pots is not known with certainty: some people think they were made for resonance and hence called them "loudspeakers"; others think the builder wanted to make the walls of the building lighter, built on busy sandy soil. If we assume the latter, we must confess that the old builder had a great deal of insight, although he did not scrap for the distant future.

The sandy soil, was washed away by the waves of the Nemunas for centuries, collapsed decades ago, and with it the front part of the temple with its façade and towers. The monks were moved in 1854 to the monastery and church of the Bernardine nuns in Grodno itself. The temple of Kolozha, completely abandoned, fell into complete ruin, part of which was only recently reinforced to save it from final destruction. The distinguished archaeologist Mr. Zygmunt Gloger wrote about the rare Kolozha monument in the "Tygodnik" in 1878, and there the reader can find the details omitted here.