The Roska temple in Belarus hides many monuments, but its fame is mainly due to the miraculous statue of the Sorrowful Christ.

Rus and its owners

The town of Rus is located near Volkovysk, some 65 km south-east of Grodno, in the historic Volkovysk district of the Novogrudok voivodeship of the pre-partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Founded as a private town, the centre of the Russky estate, it was owned successively by the Chodkiewicz, Hlebowicz, Oginski, Sapieha, Potocki and Branicki families.

The Roska church and the history of its construction

The first church in Rosia was founded around 1580 by Hieronim Jerzy Chodkiewicz, Castellan of Vilnius, while the next one was built in 1682 or 1685 with funds from Marcian Aleksander Oginsky, Grand Chancellor of Lithuania. Both churches were wooden, cruciform in plan and richly furnished. The construction of the current church has a long and complicated history. As early as the 1840s. The Sapiehs were preparing to build a brick church, which was not finally erected until 1807.

The architecture of the Rococo church - as a creative and original spatial solution - can be attempted to link it to the work of Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer (1753-1795), a leading representative of the first phase of Stanislaus Classicism. It is characterised by a certain distance from the achievements of this late 18th-century architect; it is synthetic, reductive and simplifying. This is revealed in the austere simplicity of the forms and the almost complete abandonment of architectural decoration. The design of the Rosi church should be considered a harmonious yet austere composition, an avant-garde solution at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The interior of the Rosi church, however, contains at least several monuments of high artistic quality.

Sculpture of the Sorrowful Christ in Rosi

The Church of Rosi is the sanctuary of the miraculous statue of the Sorrowful Christ. It depicts a slim, hunched figure sitting on a round stone, with his head supported on his right hand, with an ugly, common yet expressive and expressive face. The source documents state that the statue was brought "from the mountains of Lebanon". It has not been possible to confirm such an exotic origin of the sculpture, but it can be assumed that it was created at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Already at the very beginning of the 17th century, it was located in the Roch church, first in the porch, and then placed by one of the altars. On 14 June 1772, the miraculous statue was solemnly moved to the main altar amidst a large gathering of clergy, invited guests and local people.

Preserved in the parish archives is the "Book of graces at the miraculous feast", compiled by the parish priest Fr Simeon Moczarski in 1745. "Book of graces in the miraculous statue of Our Saviour Jesus Christ in the church of Roch for many years famous and from many of His faithful in their last need to His going to Him". It also contains a list of nearly 300 votive offerings made to the miraculous statue. Among them is a mention of a silver plate with a painted representation of Christ by the column with a nobleman kneeling before Him. It was made in 1770 by order of Tomasz Grzymała, treasurer of the Volkovysky district, and hangs on the altar to this day.

Image of the Virgin Mary with Child

The side altar in the eastern chapel was designed to house a representation of the Virgin Mary and Child painted in tempera on linen canvas stretched over a board in the main field. This high-quality artistic painting, probably executed in a Venetian workshop, is interesting for various reasons. It is not only the fabrics depicted, the carved background or the subtle beauty of the Madonna that are interesting, but also the way in which the infant is depicted. His positioning, with his hand lowered loosely, is not often seen.

The silver dress, almost entirely covering the painting, was created in two stages - the robe of the Virgin and Child, their halos with crowns and the openwork corners of the painting date to the second quarter of the 17th century. The elements covering the background of the representation, on the other hand, date from the fourth quarter of the 17th century. In 1997, the painting underwent extensive conservation with funds from the Government Plenipotentiary for Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad.

Sculpture of the Beautiful Madonna

In the church sacristy there is a sculpture of the Beautiful Madonna with Gothic features, the time of which has raised many doubts. It was thought to have been made at the beginning of the 17th century, when it could have been identical to the statue of Our Lady of Loretto mentioned in the inventories, which was listed in the church as early as 1633.

The sculpture is a deliberate copy of the Gothic Beautiful Madonnas and probably a replica of the aforementioned statue from Loreto in Italy. It was carved together with a stylistically incongruous plinth and immediately painted with white oil paint laid directly on the wood.

Tombstone of Zofia of Pacs primo voto Potocka secundo voto Niesiolowska (1782-1856)

Particularly noteworthy is the magnificent carved tombstone standing in one of the church's chapels, made of three types of veined marble. It shows a deceased elderly woman lying on an empire-shaped bed supported on lion's feet and set on a high plinth. The figure is covered with a draped and fringed cope, flowing softly down to the pedestal section, against which is leaning a bipartite shield under a count's crown, with the coat of arms of Korzbok, the second husband of the deceased, General Ksawery Niesiolowski, and Gozdawa Pacs.

The tombstone was made in 1888 at the request of Ludwika Sapieżyna, who wished to commemorate her beloved aunt in this way. It was probably at her request that the sculptor repeated the form of the tombstone of Zofia Zamoyska, née Czartoryska, from the church of Santa Croce in Florence, chiseled by Lorenzo Bartolini (1844).

The maker of the Roma monument was Giulio Moschetti (1849-1909), a very skilful sculptor-barber. His sculptural groups decorating fountains - Proserpine in Catania (1904) or Artemis and Arethusa in Syracuse (1906) - are well known, reminiscent of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's magnificent realisations. Moschetti used a new material that was revolutionary at the beginning of the 20th century, cement; however, his early works were created in marble.

The tombstone of Zofia Niesiolowska is the only known existing object in the Grodno area, having been made in Rome (1881) and transported (1886) to the territory of present-day Belarus. Perfectly rendered in marble, the figure of the lying deceased fully represents the realistic tendencies characteristic of late 19th century art.