Museum of Icons in Supraśl

The Museum of Icons in Supraśl, a branch of the Podlasie Museum in Białystok, occupies the former Archimandrites' Palace within an Orthodox monastery with more than five centuries of history. The permanent exhibition "The Icon. Image and Word – Between the Fleeting and the Eternal" shows about 300 icons, liturgical objects and unique frescoes in 9 rooms. Many exhibits arrived in an unusual way – they were seized by customs officers on the eastern border.

History: icons from smuggling

The Podlasie Museum holds about 1,200 icons. A large share are works that people tried to smuggle into Poland across the eastern border – once the court cases were closed, they were handed to the museum. The idea of a Museum of Icons arose in 1998, and a year later the museum signed an agreement with the Orthodox Diocese of Białystok and Gdańsk to lease the rooms. The Archimandrites' Palace was in very poor condition, so the renovation and the multimedia exhibition took several years and cost PLN 4.5 million. The exhibition opened in February 2007; its artistic concept was devised by the then museum director Andrzej Lechowski, and the script by Krystyna Mazuruk.

What to see

The exhibition is designed to lead you from understanding the role of the icon in Orthodoxy – religious, historical and social – to contemplation. Each room has its own setting: a church interior, a hermit's cave, a village cottage. You will see icons of Christ and the Mother of God, icons of the twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church and images of saints, including Nicholas and George. The oldest icons on display date from the 18th century.

The 16th-century Supraśl frescoes are shown separately; rescued after the Second World War with the help of Michał Bałasz among others, they tell the monastery's story. Look out for a wayside shrine holding the first icon in the museum's collection, donated in 1966, and the "holy corner" – a household icon shrine set in an original window from an old Podlasie house. Three films play along the route: on icon writing, on the monastery's history and on the Orthodox churches of Podlasie.

Did you know?

Icons are not painted but "written". The museum shows the cell of a monk writing icons, and in a separate room you can try the technique yourself during workshops.

Tripto tips

Address: ul. Klasztorna 1, Supraśl. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–17:00 and closed on Mondays; last entry is an hour before closing. A standard ticket costs PLN 20, reduced PLN 10, family PLN 38; on Thursdays entry to the permanent exhibitions is free. The museum is closed on, among other days, 1 and 6 January, Easter, 1 May, Corpus Christi, 1 November and 24–26 December. Allow 1–1.5 hours, then take a walk around the monastery grounds that surround the museum. Prices and hours per the museum website, October 2026.