When travelling to visit sacral monuments we have often seen characteristic Orthodox churches painted blue. Blue is the colour of innocence and heavenliness, therefore, as a rule, in Catholicism it accompanies the images of the Virgin Mary. In Eastern Orthodoxy, it is a tradition to paint churches with blue paint to bring them symbolically closer to the Kingdom of Heaven. The church we are inviting you to see is exceptional in this respect. On the outside, it is painted modest, sober brown, but when crossing its threshold many faithful in the past could think of the popular image of going through the Heaven’s Gate. In the Orthodox Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist in Nowa Wola it is the interior, which is dominated by blue and white. Let us begin, as always, with the directions to get to this architectural gem.
Nowa Wola is located near Białystok. When leaving the town going east, you have to turn in the direction of Michałowo and take the road no. 686 in the direction of Suszcza and Hieronimowo. This way you can quickly reach this charming, brown church surrounded by a low wall made of stone and beautiful, tall trees.
The church was built according to the Latin cross plan, has a semi-hexagonally terminated presbytery with auxiliary rooms on both sides and porches. It has particularly charming verandas decorated with small columns. There is a bell tower above the porch and above the central part of the nave you can see an octagonal tholobate topped with a small onion-shaped tower.
As we have already mentioned, the moment we are inside we are exposed to an immediate impression of contrast. The beautiful facade of the building seems modest when compared to the blue and white interior. The church furnishings date from the 20th century, however their sumptuousness is truly impressive.
Nowa Wola had its first Orthodox church in the middle of the 18th century. It was the Unite rite church. Approximately one hundred years later, it was taken over by the Russian Orthodox Church and changed its patron saint from the Nativity of St John the Baptist to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and later to St Michael the Archangel. Unfortunately, the building did not last until today as it burned down in 1915. Fortunately, the faithful were not left without a place of worship, because 7 years earlier the second Orthodox church was built with the Nativity of St John the Baptist as patron saint. This church is the one we are writing about and the one which survived until today.
The building underwent thorough refurbishments in 1949, 1960 and in 1991. During the last refurbishment, the walls and the roof underwent additional repairs, the inside and the outside of the church were repainted.