Description of the attraction
Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad, 50 km. from Moscow - the most famous, largest and most beautiful monastery in Russia. Over the centuries, it has become the focus of the spiritual life of the Russian state. Now it is the main attraction of the Moscow region.
The history of the monastery
Trinity Monastery was founded in 1337 by St. Sergius of Radonezh … At first, Sergius lived as a hermit, but soon those who would like to live under his leadership began to flock to him. A small wooden monastery became known throughout Russia: St. Sergius knew how to reconcile warring princes. It was he who blessed Dmitry Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo. They began to call him "Hegumen of the Russian land" - a huge number of Russian monasteries were founded by his students and the students of his students.
In the XIV-XV centuries. the monastery grows and riches. It is the spiritual center around which the life of the Moscow principality is built. A stone Trinity Cathedral is being erected here, then a stone Refectory. A large construction is associated with the name of Ivan the Terrible - he loved this monastery very much and donated a total of about 25 thousand rubles for it. Under him, a new Assumption Cathedral was built, new walls and towers were erected, ponds were dug.
The fortress was so strong that during the Time of Troubles for more than a year (1608-1609) it successfully withstood the siege of the Polish-Lithuanian troops. The monastery was badly damaged, many of its defenders were killed, but it was not taken. The then archimandrite Dionysius gave most of the monastic treasury to organize the militia of Minin and Pozharsky.
In the 17th-19th centuries, the monastery was rebuilt and decorated: new buildings in the Naryshkin Baroque style appeared, the interiors were renewed. Under Elizaveta Petrovna, the Theological Seminary was opened here - it still exists. The monastery is one of the largest farms: it owns vast lands, its own production (candles and church utensils), and a printing house. The most famous abbots of the monastery in the 19th century are Metropolitan Platon Levshin, the rector of the seminary, church writer and teacher of the heir to the throne Alexander I, and Filaret Drozdov, the Moscow metropolitan who is now revered as a saint.
In 1920 the monastery and churches were closed. The territory was transferred to the museum and the Zagorsk Pedagogical College, some of the premises were used for housing. After the war, a large-scale restoration was carried out, which turned out to be a very difficult task: the complex of monastic buildings took shape for several centuries, and it was necessary to decide when to return the appearance of specific buildings. As a result, the modern appearance of the monastery reflects the development of architecture from the 15th century to the 18th and is one of the most interesting and beautiful in Russia. Since 1993, the ensemble of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The monastery was revived in 1946, the seminary was reopened, and until 1983 the Lavra was the residence of the patriarchs. Some of the buildings belonged to the church, some to the museum, some to the Pedagogical College. Now all the buildings have been returned to the church, the museum has been moved to the rebuilt "Horse yard" next door. Only one museum exposition remained in the Lavra - the Sacristy.
What to see in the monastery
Walls and towers were built under Ivan the Terrible. Ten towers have survived, none of which is the same - over the centuries they have been rebuilt and decorated. The thickness of the monastery walls is 3.5 meters, and the height is about 6 meters.
Trinity Cathedral - the main and most ancient temple of the Lavra. It was built in 1423 on the site of an old wooden one at the expense of the son of Dmitry Donskoy, Prince Yuri Zvenigorodsky. It is a small one-domed temple, rather simple in decor, but surprisingly graceful in silhouette. The iconostasis of the 15th century remained intact - the icons were painted by the artel of Andrei Rublev and Daniil Cherny. The famous Trinity, which is now in the Tretyakov Gallery, was a temple icon, now on this place is its ancient list. One of the earliest icons of St. Sergius - XV century. Both icons are the contribution of Ivan the Terrible to the monastery.
In the southern part of the temple at the altar there is cancer of St. Sergius - the main shrine of the monastery. On the door of the southern vestibule there is a trace of the core that got here during the siege of the monastery in 1608-10.
The Trinity Cathedral is adjoined by a small Nikon Church, built in 1623 over the burial of St. Nikon of Radonezh, Sergius' successor. It is located at the southern wall and actually forms one whole with the cathedral. Fragments of frescoes from the early 17th century have been preserved here, the rest of the interior is a reconstruction of the 1950s. Here is located what is considered to be miraculous a copy of the "Quick to Hearken" icon and a stone from the Holy Sepulcher - a gift brought to the monastery by Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov, a famous spiritual writer of the 19th century.
Small amazes with its grace church of st. Spirit, built in 1477 - the second stone church of the monastery. This is the most ancient temple of the type called "Izhe under the bells" - a temple that combines both a church and a belfry. It repeats the forms of the Trinity Church, but is smaller, more graceful and richer decorated. It was built by Pskov craftsmen and they also brought with them the "Pskov" kind of bell ringing, which is not common in the central regions - when the bells swing together with the beams holding them. At the young wall of the cathedral, there was once a chapel-tomb, now it has been dismantled, and the burials are simply located against the wall.
The second large cathedral is Uspensky, built at the request and at the expense of Ivan the Terrible in 1585 on the model of the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. The temple was built of bricks, not white stone, and turned out to be more massive and squat than the Moscow one. In the 18th century, a front porch was added to it. The temple was consecrated already under the son of Ivan the Terrible - Fyodor Ioannovich. In honor of him and Queen Irene, two borders were consecrated near the church - St. Theodore Stratilates and St. Irina. An old wooden shrine is kept near the southern wall, in which the relics of St. Sergius.
The cathedral was signed by the artel of the icon painter Dmitry Stepanov. A feature of these murals is that the focus is on images of Russian saints, not Byzantine ones. At the same time, a five-tiered iconostasis was created, and the icons themselves in it date back to the 17th-18th centuries.
The architectural dominant of the entire complex is the bell tower built in 1770, which is six meters higher than the Ivan the Great bell tower in Moscow. It took a very long time to build - from 1741, during this time the concept changed several times. Initially, it was supposed to be three-tier, then it took on its present form - four tiers of the belfry on a two-story cubic base. A clock with chimes was installed on the tower, which worked until 1905 without changing the mechanism. The largest bell for this bell tower was cast by order of Elizabeth and was the third largest in Russia. And the most ancient bell was cast during the reign of St. Nikon in 1420. The bells were destroyed in the 1930s, only a few of the oldest have survived. At the beginning of the 21st century, new bells were cast. You can climb the second tier of the bell tower with a guided tour.
In the first half of the 17th century, the monastery, damaged during the siege, was rebuilt. In 1635-37. new hospital wards with a hipped-roof church of St. Zosima and Savvaty Solovetsky … The hospital chambers were rebuilt in the middle of the 18th century, but the Soviet restoration returned them to their original appearance.
In 1644, a new chapel over the spring.
Two elegant buildings give a festive look to the whole complex: the gateway church of the Nativity of John the Baptist (1699) and the Refectory with the Church of St. Sergius … The Church of St. John the Evangelist now has five baroque domes of a multifaceted shape, a row of columns with capitals and decorative checkerboard painting on the walls - all this was restored during the 1974 restoration. The interior was made in the 19th century and restored during the restoration - it is a carved iconostasis from the first third of the 19th century and a painting from 1872.
The second building, built in the same Naryshkin Baroque style and also painted, is The refectory and the church of St. Sergius in it. It was built to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of St. Sergius in 1692. This is a solemn building with a wide front porch and richly carved decor. The baroque interior was made in the 17th-18th centuries: there is an abundance of stucco moldings, a carved gilded iconostasis and murals from Catherine's time. The original iconostasis has not survived, this one was brought from the Moscow St. Nicholas Church on Ilyinka, and the icons were made in the 17th century by Simeon Kholmogorts, the famous Kremlin iconographer. The refectory itself is the largest pillarless refectory chamber in Russia, with an area of over 500 sq. meters. The interior is currently undergoing restoration and access may be restricted.
The Trinity-Sergius Lavra has one of the most ancient church museums - Sacristy … This is the only museum exposition that has now remained within the walls of the monastery, all other collections of the museum were transferred to the nearby complex “ Horse yard . Here are collected jewels of the 16th-19th centuries: rich contributions to the monastery, church utensils, vestments, icon frames, facial sewing and much more. Since 2017, the exposition has been undergoing reorganization, but part of it has been exhibited at the Konniy Dvor.
Interesting Facts
- Cast in our time for the Lavra bell tower "Tsar Bell" is the largest Orthodox bell in the world.
- In Sergiev Posad, the film "The Light Path" was filmed with Lyubov Orlova. The weavers' dormitory in this film is the refectory chamber of the monastery.
On a note
- How to get there: By train from the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow or by bus # 388 from the station. m. VDNKh to Sergiev Posad. Further from the station by bus or minibus to the stop "Center" (one stop) or on foot along the street. Sergievskaya and avenue of the Red Army.
- Official website:
- Free admission. The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is an active monastery; people here are asked not to appear in open clothes and not take photographs during services.
