Church of St. Martyr Paraskevi in Łopienka

The Church of St. Martyr Paraskevi in Łopienka is a Greek Catholic temple located in the village of Łopienka. Its history is shrouded in uncertainty regarding the date of construction, although tradition holds that it was built on the site of an earlier wooden church in the 18th century. It is said that initially only a brick chapel was erected for the icon of the Mother of God, which miraculously appeared on a nearby linden tree. From the time it was first mentioned in 1829, the church underwent many changes, including the addition of a babinets (women’s gallery) and transformations in the 1990s when it was reconstructed. The church is oriented and tripartite; inside there are crypts and a copy of the miraculous image of the Mother of God of Łopienka, whose history is associated with various miracles. The church was once an important center of Marian worship in the Bieszczady Mountains and attracted believers from various regions. The surroundings of the church include a tomb chapel, destroyed and rebuilt in the 1990s, where the remains of Fr. Andrzej Ławrowski, the initiator of the temple's construction, were found. Today, although the church has no longer been used for religious purposes since 1947, it retains historical value and is a place of cultural significance, particularly associated with local devotion, as also attested by legends of the miraculous image. Next to the church, the remains of a wooden bell tower and a cemetery have survived to this day, with only two gravestones remaining. The church and its surroundings can be explored during tourist hikes, with guaranteed access to scenic trails that connect these historical sites with the beauty of the Bieszczady nature.