Khram Rozhdestva Presvyatoy Bogoroditsy D.murovanka

Muravanka, Belarus, Belarus

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Khram Rozhdestva Presvyatoy Bogoroditsy in Muravanka, known in Belarusian as the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a 16th-century fortified church in the village of Muravanka in the Shchuchyn District of the Grodno region, Belarus. Built between 1516 and 1542, most sources place its construction around 1524, on the initiative and with the funds of the Lithuanian nobleman Shymko (Shimko) Matkevich-Shklyansky, the Vilnius pony steward, and it stands as one of the earliest churches of the fortress type in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, closely related to the similar church in Synkavichy and to the Belarusian Gothic style. The church is a single-nave, four-pillar building with thick stone walls up to two metres, a high roof, Gothic vaults, small windows and narrow arrow slits, combining the functions of a place of worship and a defensive stronghold that could shelter villagers and withstand raids, and it was later elevated to a church of “fortress type” with a surrounding fence and gates in later centuries.