St. Nicholas Church in Kleszczele

The Church of St. Nicholas in Kleszczele is an Orthodox filial church belonging to the Parish of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, which is part of the Warsaw-Bielsk Diocese of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church. It is the oldest building in Kleszczele, with a complex history. Constructed in 1709 as a bell tower for the Church of St. Nicholas, which had served as an Orthodox place of worship since the 16th century but was taken over by the Uniates in 1648. A merchant brotherhood operated at the church, responsible for its maintenance and the support of the clergy. The building, which was Uniate for a period, returned to Orthodox hands in 1839 when, following the decisions of the Polotsk Synod, all Uniate churches in the region were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church of St. Nicholas served as the main parish church until 1877, when a new brick church was completed. The older church burned down during World War I, but the 18th-century bell tower survived, undergoing major renovations in the 1980s and again in 2012. Interestingly, the building was entered into the register of historical monuments on September 16, 1959. Architecturally, the church is wooden, with a log structure on the first floor and a post-and-beam construction on the second, and the roof is covered with wood shingles. The Church of St. Nicholas is an important element of the region's cultural heritage and reflects the rich history of the local community.