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Grabarka is the biggest Orthodox sanctuary in Poland. Grabarka is for the Orthodox followers what Częstochowa sanctuary is for the Polish Catholics.
Grabarka is located in the Podlaskie province, around 10 kilometres east from Siemiatycze. Time has stopped here. Old, wooden cottages, roadside shrines with four-armed crosses. Soothing quietness.
Holly Mountain is known for miracles. The most famous miracle was recorded in 1710 during the cholera epidemics. An old man experienced a revelation that anybody who followed him to the hill and drank water from the spring spurting from there, would be cured. And so it happened. As a gesture of thankfulness, the people built a wooden chapel in that exact spot, which was later extended into the Transfiguration Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox church is surrounded by a forest of wooden crosses, often with epitaphs engraved in Cyrillic alphabet. Some of the crosses are already rotten, some brand new, some as high as 3 meters, or hardly half a meter high. All of them, however, were brought for an important intention by the ailing, distressed, those seeking hope and strength.
More crosses are brought on the 19th of August, the day of Transfiguration of Jesus, or Spas, when the pilgrims arrive not only from Poland, but also Greece, Portugal, India and America. They participate in an all-night vigil. In a mystic aura created by the stars, candlelight and the accompaniment of choirs, the pilgrims, surrounded by thousands of crosses, pray for their deceased to be welcomed into the kingdom of Spas Izbawnik (The Saviour). The ceremonial service ends with dawn.
The spring spurts at the foot of the Holy Mountain as it did two centuries ago. This is the final destination of all pilgrims. Some of them immerse in the nearby stream whose water is said to cure and heal. They soak scarves in the water and wash their body parts that need to be cured with them. The pilgrims leave the scarves as a sign of disease leaving their body.
