Eliasz Klimowicz

Eliasz Klimowicz (2 August 1864 – 1940 or later), also referred to as Prorok Ilja ("Ilja the Prophet") and Ilja Grzybowski ("Ilja of Grzybowszczyzna"), was a Polish-Belarusian peasant and a dissident Eastern Orthodox religious leader, active in the Podlachia region.

Early life Klimowicz was born in the village of Grzybowszczyzna, in Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland). He came from a religiously mixed family of Orthodox and Catholic Christians. His father, Wawrzyniec, was a veteran of the January Uprising and an Orthodox. His mother, Józefina, was Catholic. He was named after the biblical prophet Elijah and baptised in the Orthodox church in Ostrów Północny. He had two brothers.

Klimowicz did not attend any school and was illiterate. After serving in the military, in early 1890s he married a woman named Jewdokija, with whom he had a son, Włodzimierz (died in 1900 at the age of seven), and a daughter, Wiera. Jewdokija died on 14 March 1901, at the age of 34. Two months later, on 21 May 1901, Klimowicz married Zofia Prokopczyk from Leszczany. It is not known which woman was the mother of his second son, Wincenty.

Funding a church Klimowicz received five thousand rubles after his older brother was killed in Grodno. He also sold most of the land that he inherited from his father. After two years of fundraising, he started building the church in Stara Grzybowszczyzna in 1904. The local population connected this sudden relief with Klimowicz's pilgrimage and declared it miracle.

Klimowicz returned from his travels with a significant amount of money and continued construction of the church. The source of the money was unknown, but many locals believed it came from Father John. Klimowicz also continued to fundraise. The building however was unfinished due to the start of the First World War. Klimowicz took part in the Bieżeństwo, a mass evacuation of the Orthodox population into the depths of Russia in 1915. he witness the ongoing Russian Revolution and various tragedies, including cases of cannibalism and mass murder. Klimowicz started to believe that "the end of the world" is coming. The construction was finished in 1929.

Conflict with Orthodox clergy Due to Klimowicz's rising fame, the Orthodox clergy decided to grant him holy orders. Klimowicz agreed to receive them under a condition that the church will remain under his ownership. However, a day after his holy orders, the church was taken over by the clergy, and a different priest was designated to it. This started a conflict between Klimowicz and the clergy. Rumors about Klimowicz's "sexual excesses" with his female followers started circulating. He lived together with a group of so-called "holy women" (święte baby).

Klimowicz's followers began to take action on their own, proclaiming revelations in nearby villages such as Puchły and Ciełuszki.

Legacy Klimowicz's cult did not cease activities after his disappearance in 1939. His female followers, known as "holy women", kept the cult alive. Church services for the cult were conducted first by Paweł Wołoszyn, next by Nadia Antoniuk, and finally by Tatiana Kowalczuk. Over the next decades, groups of Klimowicz's cult members were active in Ciełuszki, Trześcianka, Pawły, Michałowo, Pieńki, and Kamień. Members of the Ciełuszki group started building a church for themselves in 1943, but the construction was halted when they were arrested by German Nazis. According to National Geographic'''s 2019 article, images, paintings, and various memorabilia of Klimowicz could still be found in local people's houses. Foundations of Klimowicz's unfinished church in Wierszalin were cleaned up, and round stones with symbols of several monotheistic religions were embedded into them, creating a "Monotheistic Temple of the World" (Monoteistyczna Świątynia Świata). Pawluczuk initially published his findings in scholarly publications and newspapers and later in 1974 compiled his findings into a journalistic book titled "Wierszalin: Reportaż o końcu świata". In 2004, Pawluczuk also published a fictional work, Judasz, which centers its plot on the events surrounding Klimowicz and Wierszalin.

The Teatr Wierszalin theater named itself after Klimowicz and his village. One of its plays directed by Piotr Tomaszuk and titled "Wierszalin:Reportaż o końcu świata" adopts portions of Pawluczuk's book into a drama.

Eliasz Klimowicz is a protagonist of Tadeusz Słobodzianek's play, titled Prorok Ilja.

Belarusian writer Aliaksei Karpiuk wrote a novel about Klimowicz and his cult, titled Veršalinski raj ("Wierszalin Paradise") and published in 1974. Several documentary films were made about Klimowicz,

In 2025, Polish black metal band Patriarkh released a concept album titled Пророк Илия'' ("Prorok Ilja"), which details the story of Klimowicz.