Monument to Saint Athanasius of Brest

In 2005, a monument to the Monk Martyr was erected on the site near St. Simeonov Cathedral.

Athanasius of Brest lived in a difficult historical period, when the intricacies of secular politics left an imprint on church foundations. As a result, in 1596, the Union of Brest was signed, which stated that part of the Western Russian Orthodox Metropolis of Kiev declares the acceptance of Catholicism and submits itself to the Pope. However, the service was left in the Byzantine (accepted in Orthodoxy) tradition and conducted in Church Slavonic (not in Latin, as in Catholics). Subsequently, this new movement became known as the Greek Catholic Church, and became widespread in Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, the Baltic States, which were part of Poland.

In those territories dominated by the Uniates, which enjoyed the great support of the Polish kings, began the oppression of the Orthodox and their transition to a semi-legal position. The same fate befell in 1636 and Doboj monastery in Vilna, in which Athanasius was the viceroy of the abbot. Since 1640 he became abbot of the Brest St. Simeonov monastery. Father Athanasius actively fought against the oppression of the Orthodox and for the return of Orthodox churches handed over to the Uniates. He wrote letters of complaint, spoke at the Sejms in Warsaw, was repeatedly arrested, put on trial, deprived of rank, and then restored to rank and returned to the monastery.

On September 5, 1648, for refusing to betray Orthodoxy and join the union, Athanasius was brutally executed - buried alive in the ground. The relics of St. Athanasius of Brest are kept in St. Simeon's Cathedral in Brest.