Feast of St. Bartholomew (August 24), Nalibaki (Naliboki) 2015. Сьвятога Барталамея, Налібакі (Налібокі) 2015 г.
Nalibaki lies in the middle of the Nalibaki Wilderness (Nalibotskaja pushcha — Налібоцкая пушча), the largest forest in Belarus.
From 1921 until the Soviet Union invaded in September 1939, the Nalibaki Wilderness was part of the Polish Republic. During World War II the Wilderness harbored large groups of anti-German partisans — Soviet, Home Army (Polish) and Jewish units. The people of Nalibaki are reticent to speak freely to outsiders, in the wake of what happened to their forefathers and to their church under both Soviets and Germans. On May 8, 1943 a group of Soviet partisans, perhaps including men from the Jewish Bel’ski partisan group, murdered 128 villagers.
The inhabitants of Nalibaki — like the inhabitants of other villages in the Wilderness — display quiet but deep pride in their parish. Although the church is named for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the parish has long celebrated its main annual feast on St. Bartholomew’s day, given that the village’s first, long-gone church, built in the 17th century, was dedicated to the apostle Bartholomew.
