The first Fraternity museum in Lutsk

The Lutsk Fraternity was founded back in 1617. The museum represents exclusive materials from the funds of Volyn Museum of Regional Studies, which formed the basis of the exposition: the confessional book of the 1930s which belonged to the Exaltation of the Cross (in one time – the Fraternity) Church, parish register of baptism, printed anciently from the Lutsk Fraternity library (Apostle and Gospel), documents about financial affairs of Lutsk brothers and also original church accessories. The director of the Regional Studies Museum Anatolii Syliuk said that the head of St. Andrew the Apostle Volyn Regional Fraternity (successor of Exaltation of the Cross Fraternity) Andrii Bondarchuk helped organizing the exposition.

Lutsk history researcher Petro Tronevych writes that in the 17th century the Fraternity owned the buildings of the Exaltation of the Cross Church, the hospital, the monastery and a school; there was also a cemetery located nearby, where the brothers were buried. As well as the Kyiv and Lviv Fraternities, the Lutsk one belonged to prominent social-religious and cultural-educational organizations of Ukrainian people’s all social strata, which fought for preservation of national Orthodox faith, language, culture and writing. Among the Lutsk brothers were the following figures: the Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, hetman Petro Konashevych, poet and social activist Danylo Bratkovsky, founder of the Kyiv brothers’ school Halshka Hulevychivna, Lesia Ukrainka’s father Petro Kosach, hetman Mazepa’s mother... The buildings of the Lutsk Fraternity did not emerge from nothing, since ancient times the city hospital and the Church of St. Lazarus were located in this place. And the newly established Fraternity started its activity with taking care of the hospital and the Lazarus Church. There was a Slavic-Greek-Latin school within the Fraternity, in which the famous icon painter Job Kondzelevych had worked. The Exaltation of the Cross Church was rebuilt, and one of its donors was the Russian emperor Alexander III, who visited it in 1890 with his family.

The new museum will offer the visitors a scheme-reconstruction of Old Lutsk depicted on a satellite photograph of modern Lutsk. Looking into the past will be not only interesting but also informative, as one may find out what was in the place of your present house.