Until the end of the XVIII century the owners of Chomsk were the Oginski family, unfortunately it is not known in what year they bought (or were given) the land. The first mention of the church just coincides with the dates when they were the owners of Homsk.

According to the documents stored in RGIA, the oldest mention of the church in Chomsk as a Uniate church is a document from 1698 to 1801.

It is worth mentioning the “List of Christian Catholic settlements of 1726”. Where Chomsk Oppidum is mentioned.

At the end of the 18th century, Wojciech Puslowski bought Chomsk from the Oginski. There is no information about the reasons why the old church was destroyed or fell into disrepair. But already in 1800 Wojciech built a new Uniate church in Chomsk.

The church was two-storied, built of brick in the style of classicism. The round domed rotunda, on three sides was distinguished by four porticoes with triangular pediments, under which the entrances to the church were made. In the interior was placed in a circle colonnade, which held the domed vault.

This is confirmed by the preserved metric books for 1823 on the Marmon site.

There is also a mention of a Uniate priest in the church:

Stepan Pashkevich, * 1808. Studied at the Volensk Greek Theological Seminary {[29.08.1827 0 1831], good reasons; Candidate of Theology 1831; crowned by Lithuanian Episcopal Bishop I. Semashka 1832; saint of the Tsar of Lithuania. Syamashko 1832; saint of the tsar’s church in the town of Chomsk, Kobrynsk. Khomsk of Kobrynsk Pav. 1836 - 25.02.1837; Dragicheskiy Vice-Dean of 1830s; foreman of Zhyrovitskaya (Lithuanian) spiritual seminary of 1830s. {[191; 576, arc. 71 adv.; 695].

After the Council of Polotsk, the church was handed over to the Orthodox. In 1864 it was marked on Rittich’s maps, which means that it was active at that time.

On Schubert’s 1866 - 1887 maps, the church was also mapped (either before or after the fire circa 1870-72).

After the fire of 1870 - 1872 (approximately) the church was renovated and rebuilt by architect Guriev. There is also a small description of the rebuilt church.

Khomskaya Tsarkva was built in the style of classism. It was built with a round bathing rotunda, three basins separated by 4-column portcullis with 3-cornered fronds, under which the entrances to the temple were built. The interior had a round calanade, which was used for bathing.

The metric books are already orthodox and can be found in the Grodno archive or on the Marmons' website.

There is also a mention of our church in “Descriptions of churches and parishes. Grodno Orthodox Church Calendar. Volume 1.”

It is worth noting that it mentions a church destroyed in 1829. It is quite possible that the church did burn before 1829. But there are no documents confirming this, and it may well be a misprint.

At the time of II Rzeczypospolitej the church was functioning as an Orthodox church, but the maps were canceled as a church.

It is known that in 1915 there was a fire in the church. The church bell was made in 1930 on donations from a resident of the village of Chomsk Ivan Alekseevich Onisko. There are also photos of those times of the church in 1929.

After the partition of Poland in 1939, these territories went to the USSR.

In 1943, during World War II, German troops burned the church together with 65 inhabitants of the town. After the war, services were held in the church in a wooden annex to the church.

There is a description of the church that remained after the war:

To the left of the entrance there is a broken plank church with an old royal bell. A stone parkan was drilled in the vakol of the tsarqva.

There are mentions that the priest, Priest Eugene Vladimirovich Shpakovsky, served in the church. Shpakovsky, served in the Church of the Intercession from the late 40’s to 1954. The headman in the Khom temple in those years could be Ivan Trofimovich Zima

Also after the war an attempt was made to rebuild and return the temple to the Orthodox, as evidenced by a letter from the church council of Chomsk to the Pinsk Regional Executive Committee:

Our church was built in the early twentieth century, burned down by the German fascists on July 5, 1943, the day of the mass murder of the citizens of the village of Chomsk… The bodies of those killed are buried in a mass grave near the aforementioned church. Nowadays the church building is a stone box with well-preserved eight columns that supported the ceiling. It can be easily restored. According to the estimate made for the restoration of our church, all construction costs will cost 97 850rub. 26 kopecks…

Letter from Archpriest Dilevsky Nikolai Semenovich:

The walls of the temple remained intact and quite still strong, only the upper part of the temple was destroyed - the roof and the wooden dome. The local believing population is in dire need of restoration of their ruined temple… They (parishioners) can replenish 50% of the estimated amount by giving their labor force for this purpose… The population is characterized by special religiosity. The present temple, a boarded-up barrack, cannot satisfy all the religious needs of the believers…..

On 29 verasnya 1952 the wooden annex to the brick wall of the former church in Chomsk is a prayer house, the roof is very dilapidated and threatens to collapse. The community of believers was contractually obliged to make current repairs. The church council discussed the issue of repairs and agreed to start rebuilding the ruined church building….. Talking with the church headman, in the sense of restoration the latter said that they already had twenty thousand rubles collected by donations in the church…” DABV, F.1482, vop.1, p.8, ark.108.

But the decision was to destroy the church and transfer the church materials to the Kirov collective farm. The decision was made in 1964, finally the church was destroyed in 1972.

There is a photo of the church before the destruction but already in poor condition in 1960.

According to a local resident, the demolition of the church took place as follows:

The church was finally demolished in the early 70s, two caterpillar tractors caught the cables The priest and his wife were reburied some time later, when the asphalt road was laid. The graves were near the walls of the church, but as reburied … I was present at this barbarity as a kid. They dug up the grave, opened the stone crypt, the brick one. On the first day they took out a zinc coffin, almost whole, They loaded it on the car and opened the coffin: there was a bearded skeleton in church vestments. (sorry, Lord) with a copper (bronze?) cross in his hands. ) those who opened (by the way, not local, some shabashniki in ancient times were) beard lifted the deceased, the gold cross, they say, people who were present were looking for, began to resent the coffin was closed, taken to the local cemetery, in a new grave placed and the next day they took out of the crypt the coffin of the wife of the deceased also opened out of curiosity (the remains are poorly preserved) and also taken to a new place of rest … They threw earth, monuments (marble, beautifully made) were put up in some way, their cast-iron fence was dumped …

Now on the place of the church there is a house of culture. In the center of the agro-town appeared a memorial sign (a cross, a stone and a bell) of the church that used to be there. BrestCITI was informed about it by reader Anna and sent a photo. On the installed memorial plaque reads: “St. Pokrovskaya Church, a unique architectural monument, which has few analogs in Europe. It was built in 1800 by Wojciech-Puslowski, the owner of Chomsk. In the photo below, in the background is the house of culture.

The current Intercession Church in the village of Chomsk was built in 1992. It was consecrated on February 25, 1993.

References and information used in the material:

• http://drogblag.by

• Svyatar in Belarusian society: a prasapagrafiya ўniyatskogo dukhavnstvo 1596-1839 / Dzianis Liseichykau. - Minsk, 2015. - 719 p., [16] l. lil.

• https://brestcity.com

• Photo © Alyaksandr Strokach.

• Photo from the archives of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IS PAN R0000026360a).

• Photo by P. Mulyarczyk

• Alyaksandr Strokacz

• Kashtalian V. N.

• Iraida Finakova