Press releases

5 Feb 2018

Princess Magdalena Radziwill to be reburied in Minsk

MINSK, 5 February (BelTA) - Princess Magdalena Radziwill, the patroness of the Belarusian renaissance of the early 20th century, will be reburied in the Holy Trinity Church (also known as St. Roch on the Golden Hill) in Minsk, BelTA learned from the website www.catholic.by.

The ceremony will take place on 17 February. On the evening of 16 February, the remains of Princess Magdalena Radziwill will lie in repose in the Holy Trinity Church. The remains will be reburied in the left side of the temple. The commemorative plate and a bas-relief will be installed in memory of the famous patroness.

The funeral service will be officiated by Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Minsk and Mogilev Yuri Kosobudsky. The ceremony will be attended by Maciej and Michal Radziwill, Magdalena Radziwill’s granddaughter Marlena Zamojska.

Maciej Radziwill stated the intention of the family to have the remains reburied in Minsk in 2016. This decision was made by the great-grandchildren of the princess. “She considered herself a Belarusian, dreamed of living in Minsk. Therefore it will be symbolic to let Magdalena lie at rest here,” Масiej Radziwill said. In summer 2017 the remains of Princess Magdalena Radziwill were delivered from Switzerland to Minsk and handed over to the Sts Helena and Simeon Church (Red Church), next to which she once lived. Magdalena Radziwill was buried in Fribourg, Switzerland. She had to leave Belarus in 1918 and lived in Poland, Lithuania, and Germany. From 1932 she lived in Fribourg where she died at the age of 83 in 1945.

The art patroness and cultural figure provided financial support to a publishing house, hospitals, rural stores and others. In 1917 she donated a diamond necklace to found the Belarusian Greco-Catholic Board in Rome. A number of schools were opened in the country thanks to her efforts. The art patroness paid scholarship to Belarusian students in St. Petersburg, supported the Belarusian library there.