Sacred
place
Historical
archives dated back to the 19th century testify to the sacred nature
of Kruptsy village:
 “Five
versts (17,500 feet) away from the city of Minsk there is the village of
Kruptsy owned by the landlord named Veriga. Since olden days this place has been
famous for its wonder-working icon of the Holy Mother of God. On Sundays,
especially in the summertime, the young and old hurry up to come here to clear
their souls from the urban vanity […] and calm down the grief that is
inseparable from their daily life. They want the jets of the holy spring that
runs from behind the altar of the local church standing on a hill to quench
their bodily and spiritual thirst. The water of this spring is believed to
possess healing power and help those who suffer from eye diseases, if they
resort to it with faith.
The scenery
of Kruptsy - that of a height surrounded by groves and the Svisloch River […]
with its banks fringed with trees – can satisfy both the religious and
esthetical feelings of a pilgrim…”
The local
church was built in 1612. According to the archives, for some time it was owned
by the landowner Yelensky, who misappropriated its receipts. Later it was
seized by the Uniate Church.
In 1839, when
the Uniates reunited with the Holy Orthodox Church, the Kruptsy church was put
under the authority of the St. Catherine Cathedral of Minsk.
The
miraculous icon of the Holy Mother of God, which had been found at the holy
spring, was kept in Kruptsy until 1884. Meeting the requests of many Minsk
citizens who were eager to pray before the icon in the winter period, when the
church was closed, the Holy Synod allowed to solemnly carry the icon to the
Church of Holy Cross located in Minsk, in the Bishop’s House. Since that time,
the icon was delivered to Minsk every year and remained in the city from May 6th
to October 1st (according to the Julian calendar).
The Bolshevik
revolution of 1917, which caused severe temptations for the Belarusian Orthodox
flock, disastrously affected the Orthodox community of Kruptsy. In 1924 the
godless authorities closed the church down. From 1925 to 1936, the Kruptsy icon
of the Holy Mother of God remained at the St. Catherine Cathedral. But even
after the Bolsheviks shut down the cathedral and destroyed the Kruptsy church
(in 1936), Orthodox believers continued to come to the healing spring.
An ordinary
Belarussian woman Agafya Koptenkova, who was born in 1917, recollects the events
of that time.
“I arrived in
Minsk in 1934. There were few churches left; many of them were shut down. I
remember seeing one church being exploded.”
“When I
started visiting the [Kruptsy] spring, the local church was destroyed and
believers who regularly came here could see the pieces of icons scattered
around. […].”
However,
“every year people came here with a cross; they lit candles and placed them
between the trees…”
Agafya
Koptenkova also remembers the healing cases that took place in Kruptsy.
“Once early
in the morning a woman was taken to the spring by her son. She suffered from eye
decease and had to be operated. Having washed her eye in the spring three times,
she told her son that she could see the light. They came there several times
more and, finally, her eyesight completely recovered.”
“In 1944
there was also healed a paralyzed child who had taken a bath in the spring.”
During the
Second World War the icon of the Mother of God was lost and only a couple of
houses were left from the Kruptsy village. For decades, the holy place was
desolated.
It was only
in the early 1990s when the Orthodox Brotherhood of St. Archangel Michael
started its godly enterprise of rebuilding the destroyed church.
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