Description of the attraction
The history of the Zverinets Cave Monastery goes back centuries, intertwined with numerous historical events. The monastery existed for a certain period of time and absorbed the features and characteristics of that era. Until now, the caves bear traces of that period, their history is multi-layered, and their different parts can be attributed to different eras.
Probably, the monastery was founded at the beginning of the 11th century on the territory of the hunting grounds of the Kiev prince Vsevolod, hence the name - "Zverinetsky Monastery". At the end of the 11th century, the monastery was destroyed during the raid of the Polovtsians.
The caves of the monastery were found at the end of the 19th century, after which the monastery was partially restored as a skete that belonged to the Ioninsky monastery with the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin. Researchers have never discovered similar caves in such an intact state. These cramped, cold cells sheltered the Zverinets monks in fasting and prayer. During the next Tatar-Mongol or Polovtsian raid, they were buried here alive.
Despite the fact that forty-eight niche-graves were discovered in the caves, where there were ninety-six buried and a huge number of human remains lying in different positions along the cave passage, historical documents did not bring us the names of those who died in this cave monastery. No one would have recognized them if it had not been for the inscriptions preserved on the clay of the cave passage, and the unique synodikon, inscribed above the altar of the altar in the cave, in which there were seven names of abbots. The ascetics who asceticised in the caves were numbered among the saints.
The caves of the monastery are classified as archaeological sites of national importance. Today, in the caves, the monks of the Iona Monastery have resumed services, for which they use the cave temple in the name of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael. One of the entrances to the caves became the site of the construction of the Church of All Zverinets Saints. Not far from the entrance to the caves, the skete church of the Nativity of the Virgin is being erected. According to one of the versions, the skete's caves could store the legendary "Library of Yaroslav the Wise".
