Description of the attraction
The Znamensky Convent in the city of Irkutsk is one of the oldest monasteries in Siberia. The construction of the monastery, consecrated in honor of the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos, began according to a letter given by Metropolitan Pavel of Siberia and Tobolsk in 1689. It was decided to build the church near the Irkutsk prison, on the right bank of the Angara River at the mouth of the Ida River (now the Ushakovka River). The organizer and manager of the construction work was a local resident Vlas Sidorov. Thanks to his efforts, by 1693 the first wooden church was erected, which was not only a monastery, but also a parish one.
Wooden churches quickly fell into disrepair. Therefore, in 1757 a stone church was laid in honor of the Sign of the Mother of God. The temple was built with funds donated by the Irkutsk merchant Ivan Bechevin. The monastery took a long time to build. Its side-altars were consistently completed and consecrated from 1762 to 1794. In 1797 the abbot's building was built, and in 1858 the second floor was added to it. The construction of monastic cells along the northern side of the monastery in 1818 was carried out by the merchant N. S. Chupalov. It was he who donated the necessary amount of money that was required for their construction. The second temple is in the name of Sts. Demetrius and Tryphon - was also erected and consecrated in 1818.
At the end of the second half of the nineteenth century. The Znamensky Monastery was a great economic entity. In 1872, a hospital for monastics was opened at the monastery. In 1889, an exemplary school for a female religious school began operating here. In addition, a hospice also worked at the monastery, and after a while a school for girls was officially founded, who studied church singing, reading and literacy, a parish school and an orphanage for children.
In 1926 the Irkutsk monastery was closed. The Church of the Sign became a parish church. In 1929 he was given the status of a city cathedral. In 1936, the temple was closed and a little later, aircraft repair workshops were located in it. In 1945 the Cathedral of the Sign was returned to the Church, after which it again became a cathedral.
The life of the monastery was revived in 1994. Today, of the monastery buildings, only the church, the holy gates, the abbot's cells and the monastery fence have survived.
