In the quiet village of Murovanka, in Belarus's Shchuchyn District, stands the fortified Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a rare and striking example of early 16th-century defensive religious architecture. Churches of this kind were built along the eastern marches of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to serve as strongholds as well as places of worship, and the type has almost entirely disappeared. Here the plan is a compact rectangle with a massive round tower at each of the four corners, thick walls pierced by loopholes, and a defensive gallery under the roof, all executed in brick with the arched niches and stepped gables of the Gothic tradition. The building is commonly known simply as the Murovanka church.
