Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish (Karpivtsi)

Karpivtsi is a village in the Zhytomyr region, founded around 1714. From 1790, local Roman Catholics had a wooden chapel. In 1824, it was replaced by a small masonry church funded by the local landowning Karvitskyi family, who also built a wooden chapel in the cemetery.

By the early twentieth century, Karpivtsi had more than 130 Roman Catholics. Documents of the then Diocese of Lutsk-Zhytomyr mention the church until 1925, after which it probably fell victim to the Soviet regime.

As elderly residents recalled, the communists dismantled the church “down to the last stone”. The Roman Catholic community re-established here in 2001 had to start again from nothing. Masses were first celebrated in a private house. Later, the community rented a former village shop and converted it into a chapel.