Zhyrovichy

Zhyrovichy is a village that exists entirely around its monastery, the largest Orthodox house in the country and the destination of more pilgrims each year than any other single place in Belarus. A small stone icon found in a pear tree here in the fifteenth century is the reason for it, and it is still kept in the cathedral and still carried in procession on its feast day. Five churches and a theological seminary fill the walled grounds. A holy spring still runs below them. Outside the feast days the place is quiet and entirely working.