Pratulin, Poland — Catholic Pilgrimage Guide

Pratulin is a village on the Bug river in eastern Poland, on the road between Janów Podlaski and Terespol, in the Podlasie country near Biała Podlaska, where the river now marks the border with Belarus. It has always been borderland: in the fifteenth century the village lay in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and from 1566 in the Brest-Litovsk voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Two Catholic parishes once stood side by side here: a Greek Catholic — Uniate — parish and a Latin-rite one. The Uniates worshipped in a wooden church of their own, shingle-roofed, with three small cupolas. wikipedia+2

The Uniate parish was a fruit of the Union of Brest, signed in 1596 at Brest-Litovsk, on the same river. By it the Orthodox bishops of the Commonwealth accepted the whole teaching of the Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope, restoring the unity of the Church on these lands; the Uniates kept their Byzantine liturgy, their Church Slavonic, the Julian calendar and their married priests. When these lands came under Russian rule, the Tsars set out to undo the Union and fold the Uniates into the Orthodox Church. Many refused, and the parish of Pratulin refused to the end. dziekanowice+2

On 24 January 1874 thirteen men of the parish — farmhands, smallholders, a cantor, a bell-ringer, the youngest nineteen and the eldest fifty — were shot by Russian troops in the churchyard, unarmed and kneeling, for refusing to give up their church and their communion with Rome. Pope John Paul II beatified them in Rome on 6 October 1996, the four-hundredth anniversary of the Union of Brest. wikipedia

What a pilgrim finds in the village is two places a short walk apart: the brick parish church of SS Peter and Paul, raised to a sanctuary of the Blessed Martyrs of Podlasie, where the martyrs' remains were laid in 1990; and the Martyrium, a museum standing on the ground where the wooden church stood and where the thirteen fell. Pilgrims come to pray before the relics of men who were neither clergy nor scholars, and who are honoured for keeping, at the cost of their lives, the unity the Church had asked of them. A short drive upriver lies the Marian shrine of Kodeń, the destination most often paired with Pratulin.

📜 History & Spiritual Significance

Under Russian rule the Union was dismantled piece by piece: Catherine II abolished it in her territories, Nicholas I in Belarus and Lithuania. By the second half of the nineteenth century one Uniate diocese was left, Chełm, inside Russian-ruled Congress Poland, and Tsar Alexander II approved a programme to liquidate that too. Bishops and priests who refused were deported, imprisoned or removed from their parishes. opoka

At Pratulin the parish priest, fr. Józef Kurmanowicz, was taken away and held at Siedlce, and a convert priest was assigned to introduce the Orthodox liturgy. The parishioners locked their church and kept the keys themselves. On 24 January the district prefect Kutanin came with Cossack troops and demanded the keys. kerygma

The people would not disperse, under threats or under promises of favour. When the order to fire was given they knelt in the churchyard, threw down the sticks and stones they had been holding, and sang Święty Boże — "Holy God" — and the psalm Kto się w opiekę. Daniel Karmasz, head of the parish brotherhood, stood at the front with the processional cross and told them: "Throw everything down, the stakes and the stones, by the church. This is not a battle for a church. This is a fight for the faith and for Christ!" Łukasz Bojko rang the bells as though for a procession with the Blessed Sacrament. Wincenty Lewoniuk, twenty-five years old, a farmhand, fell in the first volley; Karmasz died next, and Ignacy Frańczuk took up the cross. Nine men were killed in the churchyard, four died of their wounds at home, and about a hundred and eighty more were wounded. Pratulin was not alone: a week earlier, on 17 January, thirteen Uniates had been killed in the same way at Drelów. kerygma+4

The soldiers broke open the church doors with an axe and buried the dead without ceremony and without their families, in a common grave levelled with the ground. The church was handed to an Orthodox priest, and in 1886 it was pulled down on the order of the Russian authorities. opoka+2

When Poland regained its independence the villagers marked the grave properly, in 1918. Bishop Henryk Przeździecki of Podlasie put the Pratulin thirteen forward for beatification, their case being the best documented of the Podlasie martyrdoms, and the Latin diocese of Siedlce carried the cause as heir of the Uniate inheritance. The cause took some sixty years. On 18 May 1990 the martyrs' remains were moved from the grave into the parish church, and in 1996 John Paul II declared them blessed. Thirty years later, at a General Audience in September 2026, Pope Leo XIV recalled them before Polish pilgrims and entrusted to their intercession the cause of Christian unity and of Catholics persecuted for their faith today. wikipedia+4

☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Pratulin

Church of SS Peter and Paul — Sanctuary of the Blessed Martyrs of Podlasie

The parish church is the goal of the pilgrimage, and it stands some 200 metres from the ground where the thirteen died. Built of brick a generation before the martyrdom, it was turned into an Orthodox church by the Russian authorities the year after it. The martyrs' relics are kept in the main altar, brought there from the common grave. A Via Crucis stands outdoors beside the church. wikipedia+1

Relics of the martyrs are also kept at Kostomłoty, a village near Kodeń some 25 kilometres upriver, in the wooden church of St Nikita, where they were brought in 1998. Its parish is the one Byzantine-rite Catholic parish left in the diocese — the heir, in the same liturgy, of the Uniates of Pratulin. czasnawypoczynek.pl+2

Address Pratulin 19, 21-504 Rokitno, Poland GPS 52.169447, 23.434417 Map Google Maps Web diecezja.siedlce.pl

Martyrium Pratulińskie

The ground where the Uniate church stood, and where the thirteen fell, again carries a wooden church: an eighteenth-century church from the village of Stanin, moved here and restored. It houses the Martyrium, the museum of the Podlasie martyrs. Around it runs the Dróżki Męczenników, the Martyrs' Way, with a small shrine for each of the thirteen. parish of wołyńce

GPS 52.169972, 23.436982 Map Google Maps

🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations

Blessed Wincenty Lewoniuk and his Twelve Companions — 23 January

The liturgical memorial of the Martyrs of Podlasie, kept the day before the anniversary of their death. As Blesseds they are honoured in the Church in Poland rather than in the universal calendar; the Polish liturgical calendar gives the day as an optional memorial. At Pratulin it is the shrine's chief feast, prepared by a novena in the nine days before it.

Diocesan Men's Pilgrimage — First Sunday of October

The men of the Diocese of Siedlce have made a pilgrimage to Pratulin since 2011, organised by the diocese's family ministry. It falls on the first Sunday of October, close to the anniversary of the beatification on 6 October.

Diocesan Women's Pilgrimage — Last Sunday of May

The women of the diocese come in a pilgrimage of their own, on the last Sunday of May.

SS Peter and Paul — 29 June

The parish's own patronal feast, the odpust of the titular apostles. A second parish feast, St Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, falls on the Sunday before 8 May.

🛏️ Where to Stay

Siedlisko nad Bugiem (farmstay) — Guest rooms in the village itself, a short walk from the parish church: four rooms for two to four people, each with its own bathroom, a kitchenette and a terrace for guests, with the Bug meadows beginning behind the house. Website

Dom Pielgrzyma im. Jana i Dory Fedoruk (pilgrim accommodation) — The shrine's own pilgrim house, raised by Caritas of the Diocese of Siedlce with a legacy from the Fedoruk family in England — Jan Fedoruk was a grandson of the martyr Jan Andrzejuk. It has rooms for pilgrim groups, a dining room and a small oratory. Shrine page

More hotels in Pratulin on Booking.com →

Accommodation available to book near Pratulin. Pilgrim houses and religious guesthouses are listed above — many take bookings directly and do not appear on booking sites.

🚗 Getting There

By Car: Pratulin lies on the road between Janów Podlaski and Terespol, on the Polish bank of the Bug, near Biała Podlaska.

On Foot: The church and the Martyrium are some 200 metres apart, so the whole visit is made on foot from one stopping place.

📿 Devotional Items

The shrine keeps a devotional shop inside the Dom Pielgrzyma, the pilgrim house. It sells prayer books, material on the history of the martyrdom, devotional articles and souvenirs connected with the thirteen, together with regional produce from the Cieleśnica manufactory.

🎥 Recommended Videos

PRATULIN 24 stycznia 1874 r. — The day of the martyrdom, told by the Catholic channel FARO.TV. In Polish.

ŚWIADECTWA WSTAWIENNICTWA BŁ. MĘCZENNIKÓW PODLASKICH — Testimonies of graces attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Martyrs of Podlasie. FARO.TV, in Polish.

ZWYKŁE-NIEZWYKŁE wstawiennictwo Męczenników z Pratulina — odcinek 1 — First of a series of first-person accounts of the martyrs' intercession. FARO.TV, in Polish.

Bł. Męczennicy Podlascy — Sanktuarium w Pratulinie — A walk through the sanctuary and the Martyrium grounds. In Polish.

🔗 Useful Links

Sanctuary of Pratulin — Diocese of Siedlce — The diocese's own shrine page, with the current hours of Mass and the calendar of pilgrimages.

The Martyrs of Podlasie — Diocese of Siedlce — The diocesan account of the Union, the persecution and the martyrdom.

Who the Blessed Martyrs of Pratulin were — Diocese of Siedlce — A life of each of the thirteen, drawn from ks. Kazimierz Matwiejuk's study of 1995.

Pope at Audience remembers Polish martyrs — Vatican News on Pope Leo XIV's words for the thirtieth anniversary of the beatification, September 2026.

🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations

Kodeń (31 km) — The Marian shrine of Our Lady of Kodeń on the same stretch of the Bug, and the destination most often paired with Pratulin in a parish pilgrimage.

Kostomłoty — The Byzantine-rite church of St Nikita near Kodeń, where relics of the Martyrs of Pratulin have been kept since 1998.

Leśna Podlaska — A Podlasie shrine visited in the same parish pilgrimage circuit as Pratulin and Kostomłoty.

🪶 Closing Reflection

"I entrust to their intercession the cause of unity among Christ's disciples and Catholics who are persecuted today for their faith."

— Pope Leo XIV, General Audience greeting to Polish pilgrims, 2026