Description of the attraction
The Conception Monastery in Moscow is an Orthodox convent for women. It is located in the old Khamovniki district and is the oldest monastery in Moscow.
In the 1360s, on the flooded meadows of Ostozhye, Metropolitan Alexy built a wooden church and founded a nunnery with it. The temple was consecrated as the Church of the Conception of St. Anna. The monastery was named Zachatievsky after the cathedral church. The first abbess of the monastery was Julia, the metropolitan's sister. It is known that she died in 1393 and was buried in the monastery.
In 1514, a fire broke out in the monastery, and wooden buildings burned down. On the site of the burned-down monastery, at the behest of Prince Vasily III, the two-altar temple of Alexei the Man of God was built. This is how the Alekseevsky Monastery arose in Moscow. In 1547, the Alekseevsky monastery burned down and was moved closer to the Kremlin, to the Chertolsky hill.
In 1584, at the behest of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, the monastery was rebuilt in the old place, on Ostozhenka. Two churches were erected - the Conception Cathedral Church with the chapel of St. Theodore Stratilates and the refectory church of the Nativity of the Virgin with the chapel of St. Metropolitan Alexei. The childless king and his wife prayed in them for the granting of offspring to them.
During the Polish invasion in 1612, the monastery was badly damaged. It was soon revived.
In the post-revolutionary twenties, the monastery was plundered. In 1925, the last service was held at the monastery. It was conducted by Patriarch Tikhon. In the thirties, the cathedral church was destroyed. The revival of the monastery in our time began in 1991.
The monastery complex includes: Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built in 2008 - 2012; Church of Anna the Righteous Conception; Church of the Savior Image Not Made by Hands; the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (its dome was restored in 2001-2005). Under the Church of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, there is the chapel of Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow. On the territory of the monastery there are also the 17th century abbot building, the 19th century refectory building, buildings from the 16th - 18th centuries, and the cell buildings of the 19th - 20th centuries.
The monastery walls with towers were built in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are gates within the walls: an economic one in the western wall and an eastern gate - the Gates of the Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands. Through them the passage is carried out during services. The adjacent lanes bear the name of the monastery: 1st, 2nd, 3rd Zachatyevsky.
The destroyed monastery cathedral of the Conception of St. Anna is planned to be restored.
