Pidkamin (Ukrainian: Підкамінь, Polish: Podkamień) is a town in the Brody district, Lviv oblast in Ukraine. It has a population of about 2,500 and is located around 23 km (14 mi) SE of Brody, 32 km (20 mi) SW of Kremenets and 30 km (19 mi) NE of Zolochiv.
The village takes its name (translatable into English as "below the rock") from an inselberg called the "Devil's Rock", which is located on an adjacent hill. Pidkamin became known for a Dominican monastery. It was first established by twelve monks from a monastery established by Saint Hyacinth in Kiev who were forced to flee from the city when it was ravaged by Mongols (in 1240). They were martyred by Tatars in 1245, however the monastery was reestablished in 1464 by the Latin Archbishop of Lviv Gregory of Sanok. During the 17th century a fortified abbey was constructed. Pidkamin hosted a miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a copy of the famous Protectress of the Roman People from the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome), crowned in 1727 by the Latin Rite bishop of Lutsk Stefan Rupniewski, assisted by other Roman and Greek Catholic bishops, with a crown conferred by Pope Benedict XIII. After the region came under Austrian rule in 1772 the monastery suffered from the policies of Emperor Joseph II, and although saved by the emperor's death, it never regained its former significance. In 1915, Pidkamin was largely destroyed by Russian artillery. The icon was again crowned in 1927 by the Latin Rite Metropolitan of Lviv Bolesław Twardowski and in 1959 by the Cardinal Primate of Poland Stefan Wyszyński.
During the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia, Pidkamen was a shelter for Poles, who escaped there to hide in the monastery. Some 2,000 people, the majority of whom were women and children, were living there when the monastery was attacked in mid-March 1944, by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, cooperating with the Ukrainian SS. Around 300 Poles were murdered in the monastery, and additional 500 were killed in the town of Pidkamen itself.[1] In the nearby village of Palikrovy, 300 Poles were killed, 20 in Maliniska and 16 in Chernytsia. Armed Ukrainian groups destroyed the monastery, stealing all valuables, except for the monastery's crowned icon.[1]
After World War II the icon was removed from Pidkamin to rescue it from communists and today remains in the Dominican church of St. Adalbert in Wrocław, Poland. In 1946 the monastery was closed by the soviets and turned into a jail. Among the inmates was the Blessed Priest and Martyr Nicholas Tsehelskyj. Later the monastery was used as psychiatric hospital, which still exists, and the church was turned into a stable. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Ukraine, the ruins of the monastery were given to Ukrainian Greek Catholic Studite Monks.
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