The schedule of services in the women's monastery in Grodno. Grodno Mother of God-Nativity Monastery. Monastery in the 20th century

Monastery in the 20th century

Compounds of the monastery were also opened in St. Petersburg and Drogichin. The Krasnostotsky Monastery became one of the most exemplary in the empire. The monastery operated an agricultural school, a pharmacy, an outpatient clinic, a hospital, and there were production workshops.

At the monastery there was a church school for girls, as well as an almshouse for elderly single women. Jews and Mohammedans found shelter here, who were preparing to receive Orthodox faith. The monastery owned two estates in the villages of Grandichi and Rusota, two land plots in the villages of Kaplitsa and Olshanka, there was also a mill on the Lososyanka River and a fishing lake on the border of Slonim and Pinsk counties - Vadotunichesky. Near the monastery there was an orchard rich in harvest.

In connection with the approach of the front, the monastery was evacuated in the year to Moscow, where the sisters, led by the abbess, survived the revolution, civil war and the beginning of the Bolshevik persecution of the Church.

During the hostilities of the year, the temple was damaged, the monastery building and outbuildings were less damaged. Substantial part interior decoration the temple burned down or was damaged. But after a few months, divine services were held in the somehow repaired church.

Architecture

Currently, the monastery complex includes the Church of the Nativity Holy Mother of God, a church in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh, residential and utility buildings, a chapel.

The monastery complex is an example of the late Baroque. The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin is a cross-domed three-nave temple with two four-sided bell towers on the sides. A powerful dome is crowned with a head on a drum. Low volumes of sacristies adjoined the rectangular altar part (in the year the sacristy of the southern facade was rebuilt into a two-story volume). The main façade is completed with a triangular pediment. The walls are decorated with pilasters, doubled at the junction of the volumes. Along the perimeter in the upper part of the walls there is a wide profiled cornice. Inside, the wings of the transept are covered with barrel vaults. In the north wing of the transept there are choir stalls connected with the private building. The cell building is a two-story "L"-shaped building adjoining the temple from the north. The windows are rectangular and irregularly placed. The walls are smoothly plastered. A warm (winter) hall-type church with reminiscences of the decoration of the facades to the Old Russian style.

Grodno Holy Nativity Mother of God Convent

At the location of the Grodno St. - Nativity of the Theotokos convent from ancient times (since the 12th century) there was a cathedral church of the Holy Prechistenskaya. In the sixteenth century The founders of the church were Prince Mikhail Glinsky and Grand Duke Lithuanian Alexander. But with the introduction in the seventeenth century. Unia temple was turned into a Uniate. With the blessing of the Uniate Metropolitan Joseph - Benjamin Rutskoy, the Uniate sisterhood of the Basilian Sisters was organized at the church. (The Order of Basilians, named after St. Basil the Great, was created by Rutskoi to promote the union among the Orthodox population of the GDL). So in Grodno a convent arose.

The Basilian sisters built the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin and residential buildings on the site of the burnt old Holy Prechistenskaya Church. Frequent fires prevented the construction of the monastery, and it was consecrated only in 1756 (in the 18th century)

When, by decision of the Polotsk Cathedral in 1839, the Belarusian Uniates returned to the fold Orthodox Church, the Basilian convent in Grodno was transformed into an Orthodox Nativity-Mother of God convent. By this time, only 2 elderly Uniate nuns lived in the monastery. At their request, they were transferred to a Catholic monastery.

So, since 1839, a long period of prosperity of the Grodno monastery began. The old monastery buildings and the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin were repaired and restored, a warm (winter) church was built in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh (1866). A shelter for girls from poor families and orphans was opened at the monastery.

In 1877, the miracle of myrrh-streaming of the Vladimir Icon took place in the Grodno Monastery. Mother of God. The history of this holy icon is as follows: the pious Orthodox Dombrowski family lived near Grodno. In this family, the list of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God was kept as a family shrine. When the daughter of the Dombrovskys informed her parents of her desire to go to a monastery, the mother saw the Mother of God three times in a dream and heard a voice commanding her to let her daughter go to the monastery along with the holy icon. The mother blessed her daughter with the icon of Vladimir, and the novice Natalia Dombrovskaya brought her with her to the monastery and placed the holy image in her cell, where one day he was streaming myrrh.

The myrrh-streaming of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God lasted six months. The holy chrism, with the blessing of the abbess, was collected into a reliquary in the image of a cross, and is now kept in a case with the icon. The Vladimir-Myrrh-Streaming Icon (as the shrine began to be called) became famous for miracles, including the miracle of healing a demon-possessed woman. In the twentieth century in honor of the Vladimir-Myrrh-streaming Icon of the Mother of God, an Akathist was compiled.

History of the Grodno monastery in the twentieth century. began with the extraordinary flourishing of the monastery. In 1900 Holy Synod decided to transfer the Holy Nativity of the Mother of God Grodno Monastery to the Krasnostok tract, near the city of Grodno, in order to expand and improve the monastery. Thus, the ancient monastery in Grodno became the courtyard of the prosperous Krasnostock St. Nativity of the Theotokos Convent. Compounds of this monastery were opened in St. Petersburg and Drogichin.

The Krasnostotsky Monastery became one of the most exemplary in the empire. At the monastery there was an orphanage, a school, an agricultural school, a pharmacy, an outpatient clinic, a hospital, and there were production workshops. The lands of the monastery were cultivated at the most exemplary level, so that at agricultural exhibitions the products of the monastery were awarded medals and diplomas. The arrival at the monastery of Emperor Nicholas II was being prepared. These plans were thwarted World War. In connection with the approach of the front, the monastery was evacuated in 1914 to Moscow, where the sisters, led by the abbess, survived the revolution, the civil war, and the beginning of the Bolshevik persecution of the Church.

In 1921, the sisters, led by the abbess, decided to return to Grodno. At that time, Grodno was part of the Polish Republic, and the Polish authorities handed over the Krasnostock Monastery catholic church. Therefore, the sisters returned to the walls of the ancient Grodno monastery, which in its heyday was the courtyard of the Krasnostotsky monastery. From then until its closure in 1960, the monastery remained active, despite all the events of world history: reunification with Soviet Belarus in 1939, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and the German occupation, and post-war Soviet repressions against the clergy. It was in the Holy Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery in Grodno that the Hieromartyr Seraphim Zhirovitsky performed his last divine service.

In 1960, the Soviet authorities decided to close the Grodno convent. It was planned by the authorities to relocate the sisters to active women's monasteries far beyond the borders of Belarus (it was called the Pukhtitsky monastery in Estonia), but by the grace of God the sisters found shelter in the St. Dormition Zhirovitsky monastery. After the Soviet authorities began to take measures to close the Zhirovitsky monastery, everyone saw the Providence of God in the settlement of the sisters of the Grodno monastery on the territory of the men's Zhirovitsky monastery - thanks to this, the authorities could not close the Zhirovitsky monastery. With them in exile, the sisters took to Zhirovichi the main shrines of their monastery: the image of the Vladimir-Myrrh-streaming Mother of God and other shrines. In the exile of the abbot of the Grodno Monastery, Mother Gabriel (Risitskaya) composed the Akathist in honor of the Vladimir-Myrrh-streaming Icon of the Mother of God. The spirit-bearing old woman of shegegumenia Gabriel rested in the Zhirovitsky monastery.

In 1992, the revival of the Grodno monastery began under the leadership of Abbess Gabriel II (Glukhova). The sisters, after almost 30 years of exile, were able to return to the walls of the ancient monastery, where, after the eviction of the monastery by the atheist authorities, a museum of atheism was opened. Not all the buildings of the monastery were immediately returned to the sisters. The revival proceeded gradually, overcoming many obstacles. In January 1993, Metropolitan Filaret consecrated the restored church of St. Rev. Sergius of Radonezh, and in July was returned to the monastery main temple in honor of the Nativity of the Virgin. In 1995 Patriarch Alexy II visited the monastery, and in 1998 President A. Lukashenko visited the Grodno monastery, and in the same year all the monastery buildings were returned to the monastery by presidential decree.

Photo: Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery

Located amazing complex Basilian convent. Most sources indicate that in the 12th century the Prechistensky Church was located on the site of the monastery complex and its constituent buildings. There is official confirmation of this, as evidenced by the remains of the temple found in 1980. It lasted until mid-seventeenth century, after which it burned down in a fire. And already in 1654, on the site of the burnt building, they erected mBasilian Monastery.

Basilian Monastery in Grodno: history of origin

On the territory of the Basilian monastery in 1726 According to the project of the Italian architect Joseph Fontana, a Uniate stone church of the Nativity of the Virgin was erected, which has survived to this day.

In the middle of the 19th century, an Orthodox monastery for women was made from the Uniate shrine and assigned to it the second class. Six nuns and four novices with the abbess moved here from the Orsha monastery.

In 1848, some changes took place inside the church due to redevelopment - the iconostasis was moved to the eastern part of the temple from the western one.

In the second half of the 19th century, the myrrh-streaming icon of the Mother of God was discovered in the church. It lasted for about half a year. During this time, myrrh was collected in a special cruciform vessel, which is located within the walls of the monastery to this day.

After a fire in 1914 in the Church of the Virgin, its restoration took place only 13 years later.

Until 1992, the temple housed a museum of religion. This year breathed into the monastery new life, he again became available for visiting parishioners. And then the icon of the Mother of God, which was lost during the war, was returned to the walls of the temple.

Basilian Monastery - a masterpiece of Grodno architecture

Monastery of the Basilians is an important architectural monument style baroque which is of particular value to the country. The complex of the monastery includes a church, economic and residential buildings and the construction of a chapel. The church looks like a three-aisled temple with two towers. The main facade of the church succinctly completes the triangular pediment.

In the middle of the 19th century, a monastery was added to the church building, consisting of two floors, which has a gallery-type layout, a little later a hall-plan chapel was added here.

The amazing place of the basilian monastery complex can be visited With several travel programs passing through many cultural and historical places of the region. A large number of tourists seeks to learn the history of their homeland, in order not only to learn about new historical facts but also to see those holy places where history was made and created by time.

The monastery was founded on the site of the Holy Prechistina Cathedral - a monument of the Grodno architectural school of the 12th century. (The stone foundation and part of the walls of the temple were discovered during repair work under a layer of earth in the 80s of the XX century.) Around 1633, a women's Basilian monastery was founded at the cathedral. In 1654 ancient temple burned down along with the buildings. Then a wooden church with monastic buildings was built on the site of the conflagration. But another fire destroyed everything again.

In 1720 - 1726, the Kyiv Metropolitan Lev Kishkoy built a stone church of the Nativity of the Virgin and a residential building of the monastery (1726 - 1751) on the site of the Cathedral Prechistensky Church.

After the self-dissolution of the Uniate Church in Russia in 1843, all the premises of the monastery and the church were transferred to the possession of the Orthodox Church. By 1848, with donations from parishioners, the interiors of the church were renovated according to Orthodox canons, and on the eastern side of the residential building in 1866 a warm monastery church was built in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, as well as economic buildings.

During the hostilities in 1915, the temple was damaged, the monastery building and outbuildings were less damaged. A significant part of the interior decoration of the temple burned down or was damaged. But after a few months, divine services were held in the somehow repaired church.

During the Second World War, the monastery continued to operate, albeit with significant restrictions. During the liberation of Grodno in 1944, buildings and property were practically not damaged.

Before the revolution, there was a church school for girls at the monastery, as well as an almshouse for elderly single women. Jews and Mohammedans found shelter here, who were preparing to accept the Orthodox faith. The monastery owned two estates in the villages of Grandichi and Rusota, two land plots in the villages of Kaplitsa and Olshanka, there was also a mill on the Lososyanka River and a fishing lake on the border of Slonim and Pinsk counties - Vadotunichesky. Near the monastery there was an orchard rich in harvest.

In the postwar Soviet time land with vegetable gardens was selected for the park. In the summer of 1960, the property of the monastery was also expropriated. All his nuns were transferred to the Zhirovichi monastery. The local DOSAAF was posted in the building of the monastery church. Sports motorcycles were repaired in it, members of the service dog breeding club walked their dogs in the monastery courtyard.

In 1977, the buildings of the monastery were transferred to the Republican Museum of Atheism and Religion. Concerts began to be held in the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God (there was a piano in the altar), and exhibitions of artists were held in St. Sergius Church and expositions of the museum itself were exhibited.

In 1992 - 1995 The monastery buildings and the main temple were returned to the Orthodox women's monastery. In 1992, on the feast of the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God, the first divine service after the closure was held in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. And from the feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God (August 9/28), regular monastic statutory services began to be performed in St. Sergius Church of the monastery.

The monastery complex is an example of the late Baroque. The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin is a cross-domed three-nave temple with two four-sided bell towers on the sides. A powerful dome is crowned with a head on a drum. Low volumes of sacristies adjoined the rectangular altar part (in 1984 the sacristy of the southern facade was rebuilt into a two-storey volume). The main façade is completed with a triangular pediment. The walls are decorated with pilasters, doubled at the junction of the volumes. Along the perimeter in the upper part of the walls there is a wide profiled cornice. Inside, the wings of the transept are covered with barrel vaults. In the north wing of the transept there are choir stalls connected with the private building. The cell building is a two-story "L"-shaped building adjoining the temple from the north. The windows are rectangular and irregularly placed. The walls are smoothly plastered. A warm (winter) hall-type church with reminiscences of the decoration of the facades to the Old Russian style.

At present, the monastery complex includes the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh, residential and utility buildings, and a chapel. In the main cathedral of the monastery there is a miraculous image of the Mother of God "Vladimir", a revered myrrh-streaming image of Sergius of Radonezh.

Materials used:

Trusov I.G. Orthodox churches Grodno. Magic Book: 2008