| Intercession Church of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy in Moscow |
Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent of Mercy in Moscow
, convent, stauropegy of the Russian Orthodox Church
- Address: Russia, 119017, Moscow, st. Bolshaya Ordynka, 34
- Tel.,
- Official site:
- On the map: Yandex.Map, Google map
The Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent of Mercy was founded in 1909 by Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna.
After the tragic death of her husband, Grand Duke Sergius Alexandrovich Romanov, she retired from secular life and decided to devote herself entirely to serving God and her neighbors. The Grand Duchess saw a prototype of the activities of the future monastery in the ministry of two evangelical sisters, the worker Martha and the prayer book Mary. The princess divided her jewelry into three parts: the first was returned to the treasury, the second was given to her closest relatives, the third went to charity, and mainly to the creation of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery. Using money from the sale of personal property on the Fontanka in the city of St. Petersburg and jewelry, Elisaveta Feodorovna purchased an estate with a garden on Bolshaya Ordynka. A hospital was set up in a two-story house with access to the street, and a house church was built here in the name of the righteous saints Martha and Mary.
On February 10, 1909, the official opening of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy took place. At first six nuns lived here, by the end of 1909 there were 30, and by 1918 there were already 105.
On May 22, 1908, on Bolshaya Ordynka, the foundation stone of the cathedral church in the name of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary took place, which was built until 1912 by the architect A.V. Shchusev in the Art Nouveau style with elements of ancient Novgorod-Pskov architecture. Elisaveta Feodorovna invited artists to paint the temple: Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov, his student Pavel Korin and sculptor Sergei Timofeevich Konenkov.
In the fall of 1909, the second, hospital, church of the monastery was consecrated in the name of the righteous saints Martha and Mary - according to the abbess’s plan, it was designed so that the seriously ill, without getting out of bed, could see the divine service directly from the wards through the open doors.
On April 9, 1910, Bishop Tryphon (Turkestan) ordained the first 17 sisters, led by the Grand Duchess, as sisters of the cross. The next day, during the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Vladimir (Epiphany) of Moscow elevated Elisaveta Feodorovna to the rank of abbess.
In 1911, the Monastery operated a hospital for poor women and children, a home for poor consumptive women, a free outpatient clinic dispensing medicine, a work shelter for girls, a Sunday school for adult women, a free library, a canteen and a hospice. All these institutions were served by sisters.
The revolution of 1917 initially did not have any impact on the activities of the monastery. But on May 7, 1918, a detachment of Latvian riflemen arrived for my mother. Having said goodbye to her sisters, under the armed guard of Latvian riflemen, she left in a car, accompanied by two sisters - cell attendant Varvara Yakovleva and Ekaterina Yanysheva. On July 18, 1918, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna and nun Varvara (Yakovleva) were thrown alive into a mine near the city of Alapaevsk.
The monastery existed until 1926. Then for another two years a clinic operated on its territory, where former sisters worked under the leadership of Princess Golitsyna. After her arrest, some nuns were sent to Turkestan, while others created a small vegetable garden in the Tver region and survived there under the leadership of Father Mitrofan Serebryansky.
After the closure, a city cinema was opened in the cathedral church of the monastery, then a house of health education, and an outpatient clinic named after Professor F. Rein was opened in the Martha and Mary Church. Her temple icon of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women was transferred to the neighboring Zamoskvorechye Church of St. Nicholas in Kuznetsy, and a statue of Stalin was installed on the territory of the former monastery. After the war, the former Intercession Church housed the State Restoration Workshops, later renamed the Art Restoration Center named after. I.E. Grabar.
In the Marfo-Mariinsky Church, back in the 1980s, there was a laboratory of the All-Union Institute of Mineral Raw Materials and a physical therapy room with a gym equipped in the premises of the former temple.
On August 17, 1990, a monument to the founder of the monastery, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, created by sculptor V.V., was unveiled on the territory of the monastery. Klykov.
The revival of the monastery of mercy began in 1992, when, by decree of the capital government, the architectural complex of the Martha and Mary monastery was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate. The keys to the main cathedral of the monastery - the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos - were returned to the Church by the center named after I.E. Grabar only at the end of 2006.
In 1995, the sisterhood, which had been active since 1992, was officially transformed into a monastery.
In 2006, a social service was created at the monastery.
On May 30, 2014, the patriarchal metochion of the Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent of Mercy was transformed into a stauropegial convent, preserving a special way of life dating back to the founder of the monastery, the Venerable Martyr Elizabeth, and giving the name “stauropegial convent - Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent of Mercy” [1].
Used materials
- “History of the monastery”, official website of the monastery:
- “Stavropegial Convent - Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy” // Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate:
- "Moscow. Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy" // Website Sobory.Ru:
[1] “Journal No. 52 of the meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church dated May 30, 2014” // Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate:
[2] Nun Elizaveta (Kryuchkova): “We got all the monastery tears, but we coped with it” // Official website of the Convent of Mercy,
[3] Acting Headmistress of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent N.A. Molibog: “The muddy foam will subside, and by actions, by what is happening in the monastery, everyone will understand where the truth is and where the fiction is” // official website of the Russian Orthodox Church,
Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent of Mercy Stavropegial Monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church
At first, six nuns lived here, in 1910 there were 51 of them, by 1918 - about 90. “I am leaving the brilliant world where I occupied a brilliant position,” Elisaveta Feodorovna addressed the sisters of the opened monastery, “but together with all of you I I ascend into a greater world - the world of the poor and suffering.”
On April 9, 1910, Bishop Tryphon (Turkestan) ordained the first 17 nuns, led by the Grand Duchess, as sisters of the cross. The next morning, during the Liturgy, Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow elevated Elisaveta Feodorovna to the rank of abbess. People began to call her the Great Mother.
The monastery was an institution of a very special kind: neither a monastery, nor an ordinary community of sisters of mercy. Widows and girls of the Orthodox faith from 21 to 40 years old were accepted as sisters. The sisters who lived in the Monastery took vows of chastity, non-covetousness and obedience, however, unlike nuns, after a certain period of time they could leave the Monastery and start a family.
In 1911, the Monastery operated a hospital for poor women and children, a home for poor consumptive women, a free outpatient clinic dispensing medicine, a work shelter for girls, a Sunday school for adult women, a free library, a canteen and a hospice. All these institutions were served by sisters.
A large place in the activities of the Convent was given to the organization of qualified medical care. The most famous doctors in Moscow held appointments here. Under their leadership, all sisters underwent special training. The hospital at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent was considered the best in Moscow.
The authority of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy was indisputable. The Lord protected her in troubled revolutionary times. But on May 7, 1918, a detachment of Latvian riflemen arrived for Matushka, and under escort she was sent into exile to the Urals. On the night of July 17-18, 18 km from Alapaevsk near the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, members of the imperial family of the House of Romanov were killed: Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, princes of the imperial blood John, Konstantin and Igor Konstantinovich, Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley and accompanying them were the crusader sister of the Martha and Mary Convent, Varvara Alekseevna Yakovleva, and the manager of the affairs of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Fedor Semenovich Remez.
The Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent existed until February 1926. Later, a cinema, a clinic, restoration workshops, and laboratories were located here.
Renaissance
The revival of the Monastery began in 1992, when its territory was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, when, by decree of the capital government, the architectural complex of the Martha and Mary Convent was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1993, the Marfo-Mariinsky Sisterhood was revived. Thanks to the efforts of many, many people, the pearl of Zamoskvorechye began to shine again. The revival affected both the architectural ensemble and the activities of the Monastery.
The keys to the main cathedral of the monastery - the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos - were returned to the Church by the center. I.E. Grabar at the end of 2006
Modern life
Today, the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy is a stauropegial convent, while the Patriarchal blessing (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate No. 52, 2014) preserves a special way of life, dating back to the founder of the Convent, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, and through the preservation of this way of life, the work of the saint’s mercy continues venerable martyr.
The Synod determined that in matters of social service and works of mercy, the monastery is subordinate to His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' through the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service, and in matters of monastic life - through the Synodal Department for Monasteries and Monasticism.
The Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy is implementing 10 social projects aimed at improving the quality of life of those who need it most: disabled children, orphans and children without parental care, as well as the sick, lonely, infirm, elderly and other people who find themselves in difficult life circumstances. The projects are carried out jointly with the Orthodox aid service “Mercy”. Our projects:
1. Developmental center for children with cerebral palsy "Elizabeth's Garden"
2. Elizavetinsky orphanage
3. Elizabethan Hospice
4. Children's mobile palliative service
5. Center for rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy
6. Project to support special childhood Deti.pro
7. Recreation center for families with disabled children “Sun in the Palms”
8. Group for working with applicants
9. Helpline "Mercy"
10. Center for family placement of orphans and children left without parental care.
About the rules of the monastery
Today, our Convent preserves the features laid down by its founder, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, glorified as a venerable martyr: we have monastic sisters, and there are sisters of mercy, or white sisters, as we call them.
Monastic sisters perform church, economic and administrative obediences. But if necessary, any sister can replace another in her obedience, and then the monastic sisters also joyfully and willingly participate in social service. Now there are only thirty sisters in the Convent (monastics and sisters of mercy), and for the activities that we conduct, this is quite a bit.
The obediences of sisters of mercy are primarily related to social activities. This is a patronage service outside the monastery, when sisters go out to help lonely, elderly and needy people at home, as well as social projects on our territory.
The monastics wear black monastic clothes, and the white sisters wear the uniform that the Grand Duchess created for them. It is similar to that of monks: they wear a gray cassock and a white apostle’s cap covering their forehead. Under the Grand Duchess, the sisters also wore a cross and, in cold weather, a gray veil over the apostle.
About the shrines of the monastery
The Venerable Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth was born on October 20, 1864 into the Protestant family of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria of England. In 1884, she married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, brother of Emperor Alexander III of Russia.
Seeing the deep faith of her husband, the Grand Duchess with all her heart sought the answer to the question - which religion is true? She prayed fervently and asked the Lord to reveal His will to her. On April 13, 1891, on Lazarus Saturday, the rite of acceptance into the Orthodox Church was performed over Elisaveta Feodorovna. In the same year, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was appointed Governor-General of Moscow.
Visiting churches, hospitals, orphanages, nursing homes and prisons, the Grand Duchess saw a lot of suffering. And everywhere she tried to do something to alleviate them.
After the start of the Russian-Japanese War in 1904, Elisaveta Feodorovna helped the front and Russian soldiers in many ways. She worked until she was completely exhausted.
On February 5, 1905, a terrible event occurred that changed the whole life of Elisaveta Feodorovna. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich died from a bomb explosion by a revolutionary terrorist. Elisaveta Feodorovna rushed to the scene of the explosion and saw a picture that surpassed human imagination in its horror. Silently, without screaming or tears, kneeling in the snow, she began to collect and place on a stretcher the body parts of her beloved husband, who had been alive just a few minutes ago.
In the hour of difficult trials, Elisaveta Feodorovna asked for help and consolation from God. The next day she received Holy Communion in the church of the Chudov Monastery, where her husband’s coffin stood. On the third day after the death of her husband, Elisaveta Feodorovna went to prison to see the killer. She didn't hate him. The Grand Duchess wanted him to repent of his terrible crime and pray to the Lord for forgiveness. She even submitted a petition to the Emperor to pardon the killer.
Elisaveta Feodorovna decided to devote her life to the Lord through serving people and create a monastery of work, mercy and prayer in Moscow. She bought a plot of land with four houses and a large garden on Bolshaya Ordynka Street. In the monastery, which was named Marfo-Mariinskaya in honor of the holy sisters Martha and Mary, two churches were created - Marfo-Mariinsky and Pokrovsky, a hospital, which was later considered the best in Moscow, and a pharmacy in which medicines were dispensed to the poor for free, an orphanage and a school. . Outside the walls of the monastery, a house-hospital was set up for women suffering from tuberculosis.
On February 10, 1909, the monastery began its activities. On April 9, 1910, during the all-night vigil, Bishop Trifon of Dmitrov (Turkestan; + 1934), according to the rite developed by the Holy Synod, consecrated the nuns to the title of sisters of the cross of love and mercy. The sisters took a vow, following the example of the nuns, to spend a virgin life in work and prayer. The next day, during the Divine Liturgy, Saint Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, placed eight-pointed cypress crosses on the sisters, and elevated Elisaveta Feodorovna to the rank of abbess of the monastery. The Grand Duchess said that day: “I am leaving the brilliant world... but together with you all I am ascending into a greater world - the world of the poor and suffering.”
At the Martha and Mary Convent, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna led an ascetic life: she slept on a wooden bed without a mattress, often for no more than three hours; she ate food very moderately and strictly observed fasts; at midnight she got up for prayer, and then went around all the hospital wards, often remaining at the bedside of a seriously ill patient until dawn. She told the sisters of the monastery: “Isn’t it scary that out of false humanity we are trying to lull such sufferers to sleep with the hope of their imaginary recovery. We would do them a better service if we prepared them in advance for the Christian transition into eternity.” Without the blessing of the monastery’s confessor, Archpriest Mitrofan Serebryansky, and without the advice of the elders of the Optina Vvedenskaya Hermitage and other monasteries, she did nothing. For complete obedience to the elder, she received inner consolation from God and gained peace in her soul.
Since the beginning of the First World War, the Grand Duchess organized assistance to the front. Under her leadership, ambulance trains were formed, warehouses for medicines and equipment were set up, and camp churches were sent to the front.
The abdication of Emperor Nicholas II from the throne was a big blow for Elizabeth Feodorovna. Her soul was shocked, she could not speak without tears. Elisaveta Feodorovna saw into what abyss Russia was flying, and she wept bitterly for the Russian people, for her dear royal family.
Her letters from that time contain the following words: “I felt such deep pity for Russia and its children, who currently do not know what they are doing. Isn't it a sick child whom we love a hundred times more during his illness than when he is cheerful and healthy? I would like to bear his suffering, to help him. Holy Russia cannot perish. But Great Russia, alas, no longer exists. We... must direct our thoughts to the Kingdom of Heaven... and say with humility: “Thy will be done.”
Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna was arrested on the third day of Easter 1918, Bright Tuesday. On that day, Saint Tikhon served a prayer service at the monastery.
The monastery sisters Varvara Yakovleva and Ekaterina Yanysheva were allowed to go with her. They were brought to the Siberian city of Alapaevsk on May 20, 1918. Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich and his secretary Feodor Mikhailovich Remez, Grand Dukes John, Konstantin and Igor Konstantinovich and Prince Vladimir Paley were also brought here. Elisaveta Feodorovna's companions were sent to Yekaterinburg and released there. But sister Varvara ensured that she was left with the Grand Duchess.
On July 5 (18), 1918, the prisoners were taken at night in the direction of the village of Sinyachikha. Outside the city, in an abandoned mine, a bloody crime took place. With loud curses, beating the martyrs with rifle butts, the executioners began to throw them into the mine. The first to be pushed was Grand Duchess Elizabeth. She crossed herself and prayed loudly: “Lord, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing!”
Finding
With the beginning of the October Revolution, the fate of the Monastery became uncertain. They talked about eliminating it as a nest of “obscurantism and counter-revolution.” On the third day of Easter 1918, the Grand Duchess was arrested. On July 18, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, her cell attendant nun Varvara (Yakovleva), members of the Royal family: Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich with secretary Fyodor Remez, the sons of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Igor, John, Konstantin and Prince Vladimir Paley were thrown into a mine near the city. Alapaevsk.
A few months later, after the Reds abandoned the city of Alapaevsk, on October 11 the bodies of the new martyrs were raised from the mine. The body of the Grand Duchess was not subject to decay. When Kolchak’s army retreated in June 1919, the remains of those killed were transported first to Chita and then to China. There, in Beijing, at the insistence of the Grand Duchess's sister, Princess Victoria, the bodies of Elizabeth Feodorovna and nun Varvara were sent to Jerusalem, and the rest of the martyrs were buried in the Russian cemetery.
In January 1921, the coffins were transported to Jerusalem. Princess Victoria wrote to her brother: “We will have to go across the city to the Russian Church of St. Mary Magdalene... I hope that I will find a crypt under the church there, where they can remain until they can be transported to Moscow.” She hoped that soon the bodies of her sister and nun Varvara could be transported to Moscow and laid to rest in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent.
Miracles
One of the amazing events, of which there were many on the way to Gethsemane, happened in Chita. At the end of 1919, on his way to emigrate to China, Metropolitan Nestor of Kamchatka stopped in Chita. He served his last Liturgy in his homeland in the monastery, where the bodies of the Alapaevsk martyrs were secretly preserved. No one knew about them except the abbot. During the small entrance, Metropolitan Nestor stood in the center of the church, on the pulpit, and suddenly saw Elisaveta Feodorovna coming out of the left aisle, praying, and approaching him for a blessing. After the service, joyful, radiant, Metropolitan Nestor turned to the rector: “What are you hiding? Elisaveta Feodorovna is alive! Everything is not true!” The abbot began to cry. “What a survivor! She lies hidden. There are eight coffins there." But the Metropolitan did not believe: “I saw her alive!” And everyone saw how he blessed an empty place
Metropolitan Nestor of Kamchatka told about this phenomenon to the granddaughter of the Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov) - the nun of the Pyukhtitsa Monastery Seraphim (Rezon, 1883-1963).
Events of modern history
On October 11, 2021, the day of the discovery of the relics of the Reverend Martyr Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, the 25th anniversary of the revival of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy will be celebrated. In the Intercession Cathedral on this day, the Divine Liturgy was served by Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevsky, the Archpastor was co-served by Bishop Anthony of Akhtubinsky and Enotaevsky, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, rector of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University, clergy of the Monastery and other capital churches. At the end of the Liturgy, a prayer service was held at the relics of the Holy Martyr Elizabeth. Numerous festive events were held in the garden of the Monastery, and in the evening a classical music concert was held in the Cathedral Chamber of the Diocesan House of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University.
On September 1, 2021, a professor of theology at Oxford University, Metropolitan Callistos of Diocleia, who was making a pilgrimage to the shrines of Russia, visited the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy. A meeting of the famous theologian with the nuns and staff of the Convent took place in the Blue Living Room.
On May 26, 2021, the nuns of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy venerated the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, delivered from the Italian city of Bari to Moscow to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
On April 12, 2021, on the eve of Thursday of Holy Week, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' visited our Abode. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church took part in the evening service in the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos.
On October 11, 2021, in the Intercession Cathedral of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, the first festive Divine Liturgy took place in honor of the discovery of the holy relics of the holy martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the celebration of which, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, was included this year in the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church. From that moment on, another holiday appeared in the Monastery of the Venerable Martyr, associated with the name of its holy founder, which will be celebrated annually in the first half of October.
On August 1, 2021, on the day of the discovery of the relics of St. Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov, Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevsky, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Charity and Social Service, consecrated a chapel on the territory of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy.
From the beginning of October to the end of December 2015, classes on training Orthodox tour guides were held for the first time at the Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent of Mercy.
On December 1, 2015, the reliquary with the relics of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir was delivered to the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy as part of the all-Russian celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the repose of the Baptist of Rus', Prince Vladimir.
On September 6, 2015, the sisters of the Martha and Mary Convent took part in the procession dedicated to the 700th anniversary of the beginning of the ministry in Moscow of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Kyiv, Moscow and All Rus'.
On April 26, 2015, with the blessing of Mother Abbess Elizabeth, on the day of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, the icon “The Belt of the Most Holy Theotokos” was brought to the Intercession Church of the Martha and Mary Convent - the same one that traveled with the Belt of the Mother of God throughout Russia in 2011. After a prayer service in front of the icon for health and the gift of children, a religious procession was held with the shrine
From March 5 to April 5, 2015, the exhibition “White Angel” opened at the Museum of Contemporary History in Moscow, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova, the creator of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy. and the 110th anniversary of the martyrdom of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.
