A monastery is a religious community where nuns or monks live who have decided to leave the world and live away from its temptations. Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves are considered the founders of monastic life in Russia. The list of monasteries numbers several hundred names, and the most famous monasteries in Russia have a great history that is closely related to the history of the entire country.
Statistics know everything
- Most of the Orthodox monasteries are located in the Vladimir, Kaluga, Arkhangelsk, Moscow regions and in Karelia.
- The oldest monastery is located in Murom. The first mention of him is in the annals of 1096, but the Savior-Transfiguration monastery was founded much earlier. This place on the high bank of the Oka River, according to historians, still remembers the great martyr Gleb, who built a temple here.
- There are Russian monasteries abroad on almost all continents. Most of the monasteries are in Europe and in the Holy Land in the State of Israel. The most famous Russian monastery abroad is St. Panteleimon's on Mount Athos in Greece.
Witnesses of ancient times
Some famous Russian monasteries played an important role in the formation of the state, and the events that took place in them influenced the course of history itself. For example, the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma.
It was founded at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century on the spit of the Volga and Kostroma rivers by the Tatar murza Chet, who fled to Ivan Kalita and converted to Orthodoxy under the name of Zakhariya. The monastery came under the patronage of the Godunovs and gained special significance in the spiritual and political life of medieval Russia.
During the Time of Troubles, young Mikhail Romanov lived in the Ipatiev Monastery with his mother, a nun, to whom the Zemsky Cathedral embassy arrived in March 1613. The solemn wedding to the kingdom in the famous monastery of Russia put an end to the Time of Troubles. This is how the Romanov dynasty was born.
Capital monastery
The Novodevichy Mother of God-Smolensk Monastery on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street in Moscow was founded by Prince Vasily III in the first third of the 16th century in gratitude for the capture of Smolensk during the Russian-Lithuanian war. The architectural ensemble of the monastery is an example of the Moscow Baroque and is protected by UNESCO.
The main shrine of the monastery is the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, which ended up in Russia in the 11th century together with the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Konstantin Monomakh, who married Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich.
