Unknown Ternopil Region. Castles of Ternopil: Ozeriany

If you are coming from Kamianets to Chortkiv passing Borschev, you can’t miss Ozeriany. And if you found yourself here, then definitely make a stop. This place is worth it. Ozeriany is the most interesting village on this route. There is an almost complete set for a tourist: unknown fortification, neo-Gothic cathedral, and the church. The church, by the way, is one of the largest and most luxurious rural Roman Catholic churches. The castle is less fortunate. But everything is in order.

The castle in Ozeriany (the unknown fortification in the center of the village is called so), as well as the history of the town has long been (and partly is) under a veil of secrecy. Thanks to a new book Castles And Fortresses Of Ternopil Region by Volodymyr Moroz, this veil a little has been opened for a little. So, the first written mention of Ozeriany refers to 1494 (rather than 1656, according to Wikipedia, and a number of other sources) when the settlement was destroyed by the Tatars. And in 1565, the village is mentioned as a transit point on the salt route from Pokuttia to Podillia. Back then, Leonard Olszowski was the owner of Ozeriany. The name of the settlement probably comes from the karst lakes, which are numerous in this cave region. These bottomless lakes don’t freeze even in the most severe frosts.

The ruins of defensive structures are very easy to find: they are located on the main street in the center of the village at the junction with the road to Glybochek. No one knows who had built the castle in Ozeriany  unknown. Architect and researcher Olga Plamenytska, who examined the castle tower and took some measurements, concluded that the rock comes from the XVII century. Under assumptions of Volodymyr Morozov, the architectural features of the castle lead to the conclusion that the tower, most likely, is bastille, that is the type of transition from the tower to the bastion, and appeared in the XVI century.

The castle walls are 1 meter thick, and the dimensions of the rectangular building are only 10.3 by 7.3 meters. The castle was built of stone. There are five loopholes situated at the level of the first tier in the long wall. The tower was closed by arched vaults, and stone stairs leading to the second floor were narrow. There are deep dundgeons under the tower.

The fortress turned into the ruins during the Turkish invasion of 1672-1676. It is proved by the treasure of coins, found by workers, who were paving the way to the center of the city to the cathedral. The finding was discovered when one of the workers broke an earthenware pot with the hoe. Scattered silver Polish and Lithuanian coins spread on the ground, the oldest of which were minted in 1519, and the newest ones – in 1675, just in time of the Polish-Turkish war. Working peasants quickly dismantled the coins, but most of them were bought by the owner of the estate in Shmankovchyky – Pliatner. This gentleman came to Ozeriany the same day as he learned about the treasure.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries, Ozeriany belonged to the Polish king. In 1765, the town belonged to Severyn Rzewuski (1743-1811), the crown hetman. At this time, people began to build visiting homes here; the trade and construction were developing. Unfortunately, the materials for this construction were obviously taken from the castle walls that accelerated the destruction of the buildings.

In the summer of 2015, the remains of structures were heavily overgrown with trees.

After the first partition of Poland in 1772, Ozeriany moved to Austria. But a year later, Rzewuski bought the town from the Austrian government. In the second half of the XIX century, Rzewuski sold the estate in Ozeriany to hetman and Chancellor of the Lithuania Leon Sapieha (1803-1878). The fate of the castle in the days of Sapieha is not known, but the family left the majestic church in Ozeriany, which today is the most attractive sight of the village.

By the beginning of the XIX century, the Roman Catholic parish in Ozeryanah belonged to the Diocese of Kamenetz (before joining Borshchov) and then transferred to the subordination of the Lviv archdiocese. In 1854, Ozeriany was separated as an independent parish. In 1875, the owner of the village Leon Sapieha built a majestic neo-Gothic church in Ozeriany, which was consecrated under the title of St. Anne.

In 1885, the parish in Ozeriany hid more than 2,000 parishioners. Since 1889, the church was managed by missionaries, who established a monastery here. After the First World War, when the church became a parish again, it was subjected to Barshchevsk. With the final fixing of the soviets at Western Ukrainian lands, the church was closed and turned it into a storage room. The temple was returned to believers in 1991.

Back then, the residents of Ozeriany, who secretly kept at cathedral property returned it to the shrine.