The Diocesan Sanctuary of the Mother of God in the town of Braslau is connected with the cult of the Icon of the Mother of God, Queen of the Lakes. Main feast is observed on September 8th (August 22nd). р Contacts

From the history of the parish

First exact records about the Catholic church in Braslau date to the XV cent., when a shrine under the title of the Mother of God was erected on the Castle hill. The temple was repeatedly destroyed. Following the last fire in 1794, the next 20 years divine services were been held in a granary. In 1824 a new stone building emerged at the foot of the Castle hill. But because the new shrine was too small, until 1897 a new one was built. In 1950-s authorities closed the church and assigned it as a granary, but already two years later the building was returned to parishioners. In 1967 the church — a neo-Romanesque historical landmark — was restored.
dFrom the history of the icon

The miracle-working Icon of the Mother of God of Braslau, who is also called the Mother of God of the Monastery, is stored in the high altar of the church. The last name is connected with a story about the origin of the icon. Once, there was an Orthodox monastery on the territory of the Braslau parish, which, sponsored by governor of the Vilnia province Vojciech Maniwid, appeared in the XV cent. on an island of lake Nespish,. In the first half of the XVII century the monastery was transformed into a Uniate cloister and became home for Basilian monks. Here, three kilometers away from from Braslau, a particularly honoured by worshipers Icon of the Mother of God was kept. During feasts numerous believers used to visit the monastery in order to pay homage to the relic. Articles of Vilnia archives tell about the tragic destiny of the Basilian cloister. In 1832 it was struck with a lightning which caused all buildings to burn. The only thing that remained was the Icon of the Mother of God. People found the icon on the site of fire and placed it in the Catholic church in Braslau. In 1999 the head of the newly-established the diocese of Vitebsk Bishop Wladyslaw Blin, declared the Church of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Braslau a Marian Sanctuary of the Mother of God, Queen of the Lakes.

During a solemn Mass on August 22, 2009, the Icon of the Mother of God, Queen of the Lakes was coronated with the papal crowns, which had been consecrated the same year by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. The coronation ceremony was headed by Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne.