Church of St. Demetrius, Żerczyce

The Church of St. Demetrius is an Orthodox church located in Żerczyce, Poland. It serves the parish of the same name, which operates within the Siemiatycze Deanery of the Diocese of Warsaw and Bielsk of the Polish Orthodox Church. The exact founding date of the parish and the original church in Żerczyce remains undocumented. Local tradition claims its establishment as early as 1001, but the earliest written record of a church dates to 1583. In the 17th century, the church adopted the Union of Brest, becoming Greek Catholic. A new church was constructed in 1662 after the previous structure was destroyed in wartime. Another Greek Catholic church was built between 1726 and 1789. Following the Synod of Polotsk of 1839, the parish converted to Orthodoxy and joined the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Lithuania (later the Grodno and Volkovysk Eparchy from the early 20th century) of the Russian Orthodox Church. Between 1869 and 1871, a new church was built to serve this Orthodox community, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1944. The current church, a replica of its predecessor, was reconstructed after World War II. The church is a center of devotion to a venerated copy of the Theotokos of Tikhvin, believed to originate from Vilnius. The original icon was lost in the 1944 fire and replaced with a copy during the post-war rebuilding. The church grounds are enclosed by a stone wall with a mai

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