Vershalinski district

In the village of Hryboŭščyna, Sokółka County, near Krynki, a peasant named Illia Klimovich declared himself a prophet, and soon a group of people gathered around him who, through oral propaganda, created a legend about a second messenger of God after Christ to sinful people on earth. News of miracles performed through Klimovich's prayers quickly spread throughout Western Belarus, the Vilnius region, and Volyn.

This is a story about the Belarusian peasantry in interwar Poland. The book depicts real villages and towns, real people, and most interestingly – their mentality. Almost a century has passed since then; everything has changed except for the mentality. The descendants of those peasants now live in cities, use the internet, mobile phones, travel in expensive cars, even speak English, but they still believe all sorts of Klimoviches who speak to them on television.

An "Orthodox" person was an individual who felt distinct from Catholics – adherents of the "Polish faith." Communists, who attacked the clergy and the Church, did not cease to call themselves Orthodox. Alaksiej Karpjuk's story very accurately presents the contradictory worldviews of the Belarusian peasantry.