Supraśl Orthodox Monastery

The Monastery of the Annunciation in Supraśl (Polish: Monaster Zwiastowania Najświętszej Marii Panny w Supraślu), also known as the Supraśl Lavra is a monastery in North Eastern Poland in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Today it belongs to the Polish Orthodox Church and is one of six Orthodox Christian men's monasteries in Poland.

The Supraśl Orthodox Monastery was founded in the 16th century by the Marshall of the Great Duchy of Lithuania Aleksander Chodkiewicz. Jeremias II Tranos, the Patriarch of Constantinople issued a special tomos sanctioning its foundation. 1501 saw the building of the first wooden church of St. John the Evangelist. In this period, Anthony of Supraśl lived in the monastery before his martyrdom. In 1516, the Church of the Annunciation was consecrated, later the monastery was further expanded with the addition of another church dedicated to the Resurrection of Our Lord, which housed the monastery catacombs. With the passing of the years, the Supraśl Lavra became an important site of Orthodox culture as a result of its large library and lively contacts with other important Orthodox sites such as the Kiev Lavra and Mount Athos.

In 1609, the Monastery was one of the first entities to accept the Union of Brest in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Basilian Order took over its administration. The Basilians oversaw the rebuilding of the Monastery complex and expansion of its publishing activity. At the end of the 17th century, a printing house was established and, over a period of slightly more than one hundred years, published 350 titles in Ruthenian, Polish, and Latin. During that same period, several filial monasteries were also established, the most noteworthy being the filial monastery in Warsaw, which has remained in operation to this day. In 1796, Prussian authorities confiscated the holdings of the monastery after the third Partition of Poland. Nevertheless, it continued to play an important role in the religious life of the region as the seat of a newly created eparchy for those devout Ruthenians under Prussian rule, starting in 1797 and lasting until it fell under Russian rule after the Treaties of Tilsit in 1807.

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