The Old-believers at the confine of Poland
In the remote eastern reaches of Poland, faith lingers quietly — preserved in rituals, language, and the fading rhythm of a life once shared by many.
A RELIGIOUS CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX MINORITY
In the borderlands of Poland, where forests meet lakes and unpaved roads cut through mist and silence, lives a small Orthodox community known as the Starowiercy — the Old Believers. They are descendants of those who refused the seventeenth-century reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church, holding firmly to their faith and
rejecting anything considered “secular.”
For generations, they have led simple rural lives, their beliefs shaping every part of their days. Yet as time passes, their numbers have dwindled. Young people leave for work in the cities, and the strict observance of their ancient rules fades. The elderly still guard handwritten prayer books in Old Church Slavonic — not Russian — and remember the songs once sung in the fields, unaccompanied by instruments, as music itself was considered worldly.
On Saturdays, the bania — the traditional bathhouse — is heated. Men bathe first, followed by women and children, before plunging into the icy waters of a nearby lake. In the village of Wojnowo, a former convent now stands silent, its last nuns buried in a cemetery on a quiet peninsula. There, beneath the morning light, their peace endures.
