St Elijah the Prophet Chapel in Soce

Every year on 2 August, the feast of the Prophet Elijah, Orthodox priests walk around the whole village with the residents, blessing farmyards and houses with holy water – a procession that was banned under communism. At the heart of this custom is the small wooden chapel of St Elijah the Prophet in Soce, one of the three villages of the Land of Open Shutters in Podlasie, north-eastern Poland. Inside it holds furnishings rarely found in Orthodox churches: partly Eastern Catholic icons and carved folk crucifixes.

The chapel and its furnishings

The chapel dates from the early 20th century and was extended in 1990. It is a simple timber building with a small dome topped by a cross, standing in Mokrany, one of the village's two halves. It belongs to the Orthodox parish of the Protection of the Mother of God in nearby Puchły, known for its revered Pokrova icon. Locals call the crucifix "raspiatije" in their dialect; it is worth knowing that from the 18th century until 1839 the Puchły parish belonged to the Eastern Catholic (Uniate) Church, while some villagers of Soce stayed loyal to Orthodoxy.

Soce: a village of shutters

Soce is a double row village: two parallel street villages, Mokrany and Suchlany, separated by the Rudnia river. The houses stand gable end to the road – on one side with their windows and carved shutters facing the street, on the other with the dark pantry, because store rooms were placed on the cooler, northern side. Almost every building is wooden, with rich carving over and under the windows, on bargeboards and corners; most of the houses date from the 1920s and early 1930s.

What to look for

• Four wrought-iron votive crosses from 1895 on stone bases, one at each end of the village, with prayers carved in Cyrillic. A local legend links them to the village's rescue from an epidemic.
• An oak post shrine from 1861 above the Hatok stream, with an icon of St John the Baptist carved into the wood, restored in 2005. A villager put it up, probably in gratitude for the emancipation of the peasants in the Russian Empire.
• The wooden former school building on the road to Puchły (now private).

Tripto tip

The chapel has no regular opening hours. You can always see it from outside, and the interior is easiest to visit during services, especially on 2 August; confirm the date with the parish in Puchły. There is no admission charge. Allow about an hour to walk around Soce, and half a day to drive around the whole Land of Open Shutters (Soce, Puchły and Trześcianka). The village is in the Narew municipality, about 30 km from both Białystok and Hajnówka. The houses are private homes: take photos from the road, do not enter yards, and park so as not to block local traffic.