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SIEMIANÓWKA - Orthodox church of St. Jerzy Winzer

In 1780, the village of Siemionówka (a name that was in force until World War II) was in the estate of Narewka and belonged to Bishop Vilnius Ignacy Massalski. From 1787, Siemionówka was in the hands of Jan Węgierski (royal chamberlain), to whom some attribute the issue of the brick stone church of St. George, although others say that the church was built in the seventeenth century in the times of Massalski or Stanisław Karp.

The brick Orthodox church with a belfry and a wooden fence at that time was repaired before 1854 (most probably in 1848, because it appears on a wooden cross standing in front of the church). In 1894, the church itself was renovated.

It is strange that the brick church was built in the eighteenth century (XVII?), And the cemetery in the middle of the twentieth century. It is known that in the years 1869-1956, those who died from Siemianówka and the surrounding area, were buried at the cemetery in Narewka (first on the old one, then on the new one). It is not known where the burial took place in the period from the construction of the church to the period when it began to do so in Narewka. During the period when Siemianówka belonged to the parish in Lewkowo, the Siemianówka population was not buried there. The most probable cemetery site is a small hill, on the other side of the railway tracks from the railway station, which was dug up during the construction of the reloading station in 1952. Workers then dug coffins with skeletons. All living workers at that time say that excavated bones showed the burial of tall people "Mogilki ", which in the local language is Mohiliki and means a cemetery, is marked as plot No. 155. Currently, there is a modern cemetery on plot No. 156. The photo below is a satellite image with selected plots detailed on the map from 1932. The discovered place, with very high probability, is the location of the old, forgotten Orthodox cemetery in Siemianówka, where the burial took place until 1869, the moment the parish in Narewka was established.

In August 2016, new facts appeared. From the record book from Lewkowo, it can be concluded that the Siemianówka dead were buried in the cemetery in Lewkowo most probably from the times of the cemetery until 1819. Paroch of Lewkowo wrote that, for example, Szymon Birycki from Siemianówka buried in the graves of Lewkowskis. There were two deaths from Siemianówka from 1778, where Paroch wrote that they were buried at the Siemionowska chapel. It is obvious that Siemianówka belonged to the parish of Lewkowo. In 1813, the chaplain of Siemianowski was Jan Skalski.

From 1819, Paroch Lewkowski wrote that the residents of Siemianówka were buried in the Siemianowskie graves, which is why this year can be taken for the establishment of a cemetery in Siemianówka (no longer existing at the trans-shipment station). Most probably, this cemetery was the burial place of the residents of Siemianówka and parts of the surrounding villages until 1869, when Siemianówka went under the dedicated parish of Narewka and then the residents of Siemianówka were buried in Narewka, until 1956, when the Siemianówka parish was established and the present cemetery was established.

The latest information allows you to look differently at our church. In the list of inhabitants of the Grodno poviat of 1832, the Greek-Uniate church of Siemianowska under the name of Saint. George. Józef, the son of Ławrentja (Wawrzyńca), Daniłowicz, 33 years old, married (his wife's name was illegible), and his sons: Zenon, Zbigniew and daughter Zenia. He arrived in Siemianowka on September 15, 1831, the chaplain's job and lived here.