Dukla

The town of Dukla, situated in the southern part of Krosno County, was founded in the XIVth century. Geographically it belongs to the historical and geographical region of Lemkivshchyna, being traditionally inhabited by the Ukrainian ethnic group called Lemkos. Archaeologists claim that the first settlements in the neighbourhood of modern Dukla emerged in the Bronze Age (2000 B.C).

The town is famous due to the fact that here John of Dukla (Jan of Dukla) was born, he was a Bernardine monk, the first Catholic saint who lived in Lviv. He is considered to be a patron saint of Poland and Lithuania, the Archdiocese of Przemyśl, Polish nobility, military, and patron of the city of Lviv. In 1484 after John's of Dukla death, people started to collect evidence of healings and miracles which happened owing to him. In 1733 he was beatificated by Pope Clement XII. In 1734 the magnats from Rzeszów, for whom John of Dukla was a family patron, allocated funds for the construction of a statue of the saint, next to St. Andrew's church in Lviv. In 1946 during the closure of the monastery the Bernardine took the silver shrine with his relic to Rzeszów, which in 1974 was shifted to the church of Bernardines in Dukla. After 1950 the statue of St. John of Dukla was destroyed in Lviv. The restoration works were started in 2010. In 1948 the process of St. John's of Dukla canonization started and on January 10, 1997 it was finished in the city of Krosno by drafting a special act by Pope John Paul ІІ.

The most eminent historical and architectural monument of Dukla is Mniszków palace-park complex, built at the beginning of the XVIIIth century. Before there was a Jordan family castle at the site of the present palace, the first written records of which date back to the XVIth century. The exterior of the palace with mansard roof was accomplished in the style of Baroque. Nowadays the historical museum functions there.