The text describes the town of Pochaiv, where the monastery and church of the Basilian Fathers were located, as well as the miraculous image of the Mother of God. The history of Pochaiv is sketched from semi-legendary to historical matters, i.e. the founding of a chapel by the Basilians in the 13th century, and the construction of the stone Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary during the reign of Casimir the Great. During the reign of Sigismund Augustus, Pochaiv was said to be the property of Basil Gójski, while the church received the holy image of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Anna Kozińska Gójska. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1865, T:12, pp. 49-50., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Poczajów

Poczajów, with the former monastery and church of the Basilian Fathers, famous for its miraculous image of the God-Begotten One. Before Pochaiv emerged into the public arena of history, legend has it that a certain John Zelizo, deprived by the Kyiv princes in the year It is said that a certain Jan Zelizo, deprived of the Halych principality by the Kiev princes in 1028, which had been granted to him by Boleslav the Brave, donned a monastic hood and headed for Volhynia, and having found the loftiest mountain of hard limestone in the region, by the river Ivka, in an enchanting area, lived a hermit's life there in a cave he had carved himself.

However, the Basilian monks' records from the 17th century state that the monks of St. Basil's Rule had already had a chapel and cells dug out on the mountain in Pochaivá in the 13th century, and that the Dominican monks settled there about a mile away, on the right side, close to the source of the Ikva river, in an attractive wooded and mountainous area. It was then, according to the legend, that the God-Goddess miraculously brought forth spring and healing water for the shodden places by the touch of her holy foot.

When at the beginning of the 14th century Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, expelled the invading Tartars and handed Volhynia over to his son Lubart, the progenitor of the Sanguszko dynasty, this Lubart, having attacked Kai¼mirza V., lost a considerable part of the possessed country in battle and became Kai¼mirza's fief. It was probably during the reign of Kai¼mirza V. that the Basilians built from stone the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the above mentioned Kai¼mirza V., on which the church was built. The people start to settle under the mountain shining with miracles, and the monastery with the settlement gets the name: Poczajów, because the monks used to have to hide in caves.

In the reign of Sigismund Augustus, Poczajów is mentioned as the property of Basil Gójski; Anna Gójska, née Kozińska, having received from the Metropolitan of Carogród a picture of a half-sheet size, with the image of the N. P. Mary, holding a pillar of the Virgin Mary. Anna Kozinska received a half-sheet-sized picture of the Virgin Mary holding the Infant Jesus in her right hand from the Metropolitan of Carograd, and deposited it in the church of the Basilians, which became famous for miracles. At the beginning of the 17th century Pochaiv passed from Anna to her sisters the Firlej family. 1740 with Urszula, Duchess Wiśniowiecka, daughter of Janusz, Castellan of Krakow, to her husband Michał Radziwiłł, Count of Lithuania; in 1774 we see Jan, Count Tarnowski, Castellan of Konarsko-Leczycki, as Poczajów's heir.

It should be mentioned that in 1650 Jan Żelizo, the monastery's superior, together with the Domaszewskis built a more impressive church of hewn stone in place of the former one, which withstood numerous storms and raids and survived until 1771. It is said that before that year Mikolaj Bazyli Potocki, the starosta of Kaniów, wishing to atone for his sins, crawled from Kaniów to Poczajów on his knees, and having settled there by the monastery, laid the foundation stone for the construction of a new church, according to the plan of the Silesian Hofman.

On 8 September 1773, with the sending of crowns from Pope Clement XIV, the painting was crowned by the Bishop of Luck, Sylvester Lubieniecki-Rudnicki, in the presence of a large gathering of the pious. The church, which was not completely finished until 1791, is built in the shape of a cross, 84 cubits long and 50 cubits wide. It has a facade with two towers, and a cupola in the middle. Next to it is a magnificent monastery, from where there is an enchanting view of the surrounding area. Entering the centre, on the right you see the altar between two pillars, behind whose glass antepedium sits a rock with the foot of the Virgin Mary.

Next to the church is the chapel with the glass coffin of Gelasius, once the superior of the monastery, who died in 1551, and behind it is the cavern, his former home. The governor of Kaniów also lies in the local church, in a coffin with a glass lid, wearing a kontusz and a żupan. Since 1718, the Basilians had their own printing house here, from where Polish, Latin and Russian books for study and worship were published. There were up to a hundred monks with a novitiate. The library was numerous and had enough white prints.

The Basilians, having taken over the schools from the Jesuits, did a great service to education in our country, as many distinguished and meritorious men came out of their numerous scientific establishments. Suffice it to say that Mianowski, the rector of today's Warsaw School, owes his original education to Father Skibowski, the former rector and professor in Humań. In 1856 the town of Pochaiv, according to an agreement with Count Tarnowski, became the property of the government.