St. Nicholas Monastery New Diocesan monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church

Known for the fact that several famous missionaries served there. It was in this monastery that the first congresses of diocesan missionaries took place. The monastery became the official center for training Edinoverie priests, and many novices and workers of the monastery became priests in Edinoverie parishes in many dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church.

View of the monastery from the north-west of Preobrazhensky Val, 2007. , GNU 1.2

The former monastery is located in the Preobrazhenskoye district, the Eastern administrative district of Moscow, and today its territory belongs to the Voskresensky deanery of the Moscow diocese.

History of the opening of the monastery

The monastery was opened, at the request of Moscow Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov), with the Highest Imperial permission, in the men's department of the Preobrazhensky Almshouse.

View of the Nikolsky Monastery from the main gate, 1895. , Public Domain

At the end of 1865, Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) made a proposal and petition to the All-Russian Emperor and received a positive response from the Chief Prosecutor about the Highest Will - to establish a male Edinoverie monastery in Moscow at the Preobrazhenskoye cemetery.

“In this decision, among other things, it is said that up to 25 Bespopovites, who are being cared for in the buildings of the men’s department of the Preobrazhensky almshouse, should be transferred to the vacant buildings of the women’s department of the Preobrazhensky almshouse with the provision of the premises they occupy and the newly erected wing to the Edinoverie monastery, but so that for these buildings , according to the opinion of the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Finance, a corresponding monetary reward was assigned to the bespopovtsy, for the outbuilding being built by the co-religionists, and for the premises occupied by the co-religionists, who were being looked after by the bespopovtsi, if the co-religionists themselves did not recognize the possibility of purchasing them with their own funds, from the sums of the state treasury, according to a preliminary estimate , and in an amount not exceeding 25 thousand rubles. It also says that in order to quickly complete the matter, which attracted the special attention of the Sovereign Emperor, the Committee of Ministers decided that “now, and without waiting for an assessment, to transfer to the co-religionists for the establishment of a monastery the buildings occupied by the Bespopovites in the men’s department of the Preobrazhensky Almshouse in Moscow, with the transfer of those awaiting treatment in those buildings to the premises of the women’s department of the said almshouse.” On November 12, His Imperial Majesty deigned to put a handwritten resolution on the journal of the Committee of Ministers: “Implement.”

The grand opening took place on May 16, 1866, but Saint Philaret himself was unable to attend the opening due to illness and sent his vicar Leonid Bishop of Dmitrovsky.

The reason for the opening of the monastery was, in part, the oppression, ridicule and abuse carried out by the schismatic Old Believers against the Edinoverie Church, located since 1854, on the territory of the men's department of the non-priest Transfiguration Almshouse, in the form, for example, of bowel movements done on dark nights at the wall of the altar of this temple, despite the fact that the building occupied by the Bespopovites was approximately 30 meters away from the altar and there were toilets in it. But the main reason for the founding of the monastery was the former members of the so-called Austrian or Belokrinitsky priesthood who joined the unified faith in 1865 from a schism: three bishops - Onuphry (Parusov), Paphnuty (Ovchinnikov) and Sergius, one hieromonk - Joasaph, two archdeacons - Philaret ( Zakharovich) and Kirill Zagadaev, and two hierodeacons - Melchizedek and Theodosius, and other monastics who turned to Orthodoxy after them.

According to the pre-revolutionary division of the territory, the monastery belonged to the 2nd section of the Lefortovo part of the city of Moscow, and bore the proud name - Moscow St. Nicholas Monastery of Edinoverie, although it was located on the very outskirts of Moscow, behind the Kamer-Kollezhsky Val, near the Preobrazhenskaya Outpost.

Nowadays, the former monastery is located in Moscow, near the Preobrazhenskaya Ploshchad metro station. On the eastern side of the monastery there is the Preobrazhensky Cemetery, on the western side - Preobrazhensky Val (formerly Kamer-Kollezhsky Val), on the northern side - the women's non-priestly department (since 1866, all non-priestly prisoners of both sexes were housed in it) of the Preobrazhensky Almshouse, part of the territory of which is now occupied by Preobrazhensky market, and from the south - the new territory of the Preobrazhensky cemetery and the 4th bus depot; earlier there was the Khapilovsky pond, on which the Preobrazhensky Bespopovites had a baptismal place (in the form of a bathhouse) for the rebaptism of Orthodox Christians seduced into their sect.

Nikolsky Monastery

The Nikolsky Monastery stood on the outskirts of Moscow already at the end of the 14th century, when there was no wall of Kitai-Gorod yet, and the territory adjacent to the eastern wall of the Kremlin was called “posad” - at the foot of the city fortress they “sat down,” that is, settled artisans and traders.
Perhaps it was this monastery that left the historical name of Nikolskaya Street, although according to another version it came from the gate image of St. Nicholas, located on the eponymous Nikolskaya tower of the Moscow Kremlin. The monastery was founded in those distant times, when the ancient Smolensk road from Kyiv to Vladimir passed here, and the future Nikolskaya Street was its beginning from the Kremlin through the settlement - historians date its appearance to the 13th century. Probably, at the end of the 14th century it was already called Nikolskaya, after the local monastery, but after in 1395 Muscovites met on the road the miraculous Vladimir Icon, which saved Moscow from Tamerlane, the entire section of the route from the Kremlin to the border of Zemlyanoy Val (Garden Ring) became known as Sretenskaya Street. Only the fortress wall of Kitay-Gorod, erected in the 1530s, cut off the Posad street from the Sretenskaya road, and it finally began to be called Nikolskaya: in the chronicle this name was first mentioned in 1547, when Ivan the Terrible was crowned king.

It remains unknown when and by whom the St. Nicholas Monastery was founded. It was first mentioned in chronicles in 1390 under Grand Duke Vasily I, the son of Dmitry Donskoy, but even then it was called “Old,” which perhaps indicates an early time of its appearance in Moscow. The chronicler mentioned the St. Nicholas Monastery, telling about the arrival in 1390 of Metropolitan Cyprian in Moscow from Constantinople, with the Greek monks accompanying him. Here, at the posad, the Metropolitan, preparing for the solemn meeting with Grand Duke Vasily I, together with the arriving clergy, put on bishop’s vestments “at St. Nicholas the Old”, and with a procession of the cross they headed from here to the Kremlin, to the Assumption Cathedral.

This triumph led historians to believe that already at that time the St. Nicholas Monastery was associated with the Orthodox Greeks, and was probably their Moscow refuge. In addition to the entourage of the Moscow Metropolitan, Greek monks came to Moscow “according to common faith” to collect donations for their monasteries. Also, the Greek clergy sought protection from Moscow: the metropolitans of Trebizond and Adrianople came to ask for help when the Turkish army was attacking their cities. It is possible that they all traditionally stopped upon arrival at the St. Nicholas Monastery. However, this monastery was then also a place of imprisonment for guilty Russian priests: for example, the Novgorod Archbishop Ivan was under arrest there for more than three years.

The most mysterious thing for history turned out to be the location of Nikola the Old. Back in the 19th century, scientists discovered traces of this ancient monastery not on the left side of Nikolskaya Street, where it stood before the revolution, but on its opposite side, near the Epiphany Monastery. Judging by the dating of the found monastery buildings of the 15th - 16th centuries, it was founded in that place and stood until the time of Ivan the Terrible. There a solemn meeting of Metropolitan Cyprian took place, and one pre-revolutionary historian even believed that within the walls of St. Nicholas the Old, Abbot David tonsured the unfortunate Solomonia Saburova, the childless wife of Grand Duke Vasily III, as a nun, although it is generally accepted that this happened in the Nativity Monastery.

The main thing is that the archaeological find gave historians the basis to put forward a version: the ancient “Nikola the Old” owned lands on the opposite, left side of Nikolskaya Street, and in the middle of the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible granted these lands to the Greek monks to set up a farmstead at the Nikolsky Monastery. They built new churches here, and the monastery eventually “moved” to the opposite side of Nikolskaya Street, where it remained until the revolution, and its former territory near Vetoshny Lane was transferred to the Kazan courtyard.

So, in March 1556 (or in 1571) Ivan the Terrible assigned the St. Nicholas Monastery to Athonite monks. Then Archimandrite Prokhor of the Athos Vvedensky Khilandar Monastery came to Moscow to collect donations. And the king, out of special favor towards him, not only allowed him to continue to come, but granted the Athonite monastery a courtyard of land on Nikolskaya opposite the Epiphany Monastery, for the arrival and temporary residence of Athonite monks. They soon erected the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which began to be called “St. Nicholas the Great Chapter” - after the large, “Byzantine” chapter of the cathedral or after a local icon. Under Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarchs, this church was converted into the St. Nicholas Monastery. And in 1603, Boris Godunov granted the monastery a rich neighboring courtyard with mansions for eternal remembrance.

Meanwhile, the old St. Nicholas Monastery (near Vetoshny Lane) remained a place of exile for disgraced Russian priests. In 1568, St. moved here from the Kremlin. Philip (Kolychev), Metropolitan of Moscow, after he refused to bless the Tsar at the service in the Assumption Cathedral. After the arrest, the saint was imprisoned in the Epiphany Monastery, and then Ivan the Terrible himself determined the place of his imprisonment in the monastery of St. Nicholas the Old, assigning him 4 altyns per day. Meanwhile, in popular memory, the place of torment of St. Philip remained in the Zamoskvorechye monastery of St. Nicholas the Old, which is in the Swamp - probably due to the temporary detention of the saint in the St. Nicholas monastery of the same name, but in Kitai-Gorod. People crowded around its walls for days on end, and then the fierce king ordered the martyr to be sent from Moscow - from the St. Nicholas Monastery. Philip was transported to the Tverskoy Otroch Monastery, where he suffered martyrdom.

The new St. Nicholas Monastery took on several old Moscow names. The first of them is “Behind the Icon Row,” as the neighboring Spassky Monastery was called, founded in 1600, by the way, on the land of the Nikolsky Monastery. The ancient Icon Row, where Muscovites purchased their icons, stretched from Bogoyavlensky Lane to the Printing Dvor. That is why Nikolskaya was popularly called “sacred street”. In old Moscow, icons were not sold, but “exchanged,” without haggling, the price was set, and if the owner asked for too high a price, he told the buyer that it was God’s price. Here you could “exchange” or order any icon. However, the actual trade in images over time seemed impious to the authorities. And in 1681, by royal decree, the Icon Row was banned - “trading people should not keep holy icons at the exchange and the icon row should no longer be in that place,” and the trade in icons was transferred to the Printing Yard, where several stone shops were built.

The second nickname of the Nikolsky Monastery was “behind the Vetoshny Row,” since nearby there was another ancient trading row where they traded fur (in the old days, rags

) and then with used things. The third and most famous is “at the kissing of the cross,” since here in pre-Petrine Moscow was St. Nicholas’s sacrum. Kresttsy were the names given to places in Kitai-Gorod where there were chapels where people were brought to take the ancient oath - kissing the cross. There were only three of them, according to the number of posad streets - Nikolsky, Ilyinsky, Varvarsky, and each in its own way: on Varvarsky Sacrum healers offered their services, on Ilyinsky Moscow priests gathered, where Muscovites invited them to their homes or house churches to perform divine services. The Nikolsky Monastery had its own chapel of St. Nicholas, and here the participants in the trial were sworn in in controversial cases: as evidence of correctness, the litigants kissed the cross and the image of St. Nicholas, and before such issues were resolved in judicial duels, when they fought with clubs - whoever wins is right. These competitions were called the “Judgment of God” and during the reign of Ivan the Terrible they were categorically prohibited by the Church.

Monastery chapel of St. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, known since 1646, was especially revered in Moscow: an unquenchable candle burned in front of the image of the holy saint, brought from Mount Athos. And there was a pious custom among the people - every day at dusk, take the fire from this candle in the chapel, and light candles and night lights from it in their homes. The custom persisted until the time of Peter I, who banned both chapels and sacrums.

The remarkable history of the St. Nicholas Monastery continued in the 17th century, when the monastery finally came into the possession of the Athonite monks. In 1648, a great shrine was brought to Moscow from Athos - a copy of the miraculous Iveron Icon, which miraculously appeared to the Athos monks and became their protector and patroness. In Moscow they learned about this icon and wanted to have a list of it, which was requested by the Archimandrite of the Athos Iveron Monastery, who arrived in Moscow for the next collection of donations. The request was expressed by the tsar’s “friend”, then still archimandrite of the Moscow Novospassky Monastery Nikon, the future patriarch. And in October 1648, Muscovites greeted the Iveron Icon at the Neglinensky (future Resurrection) Gate of Kitay-Gorod: it was reverently transferred to the St. Nicholas Monastery.

For this priceless gift, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1653 allowed the Greeks at the Athos courtyard in the St. Nicholas Monastery to perform divine services in their native Greek language, and a year later all Russian monks were removed from that monastery. At that time, the Nikolsky Monastery became the center of close attention of Patriarch Nikon, who even wanted to have a table of Greek dishes. Nikon personally visited the monastery, where the monks, led by the archimandrite, treated him to Greek dishes and received modest monetary offerings in return.

Soon the Iveron Icon was sent to the Valdai Monastery, and a new copy was ordered for Moscow and also placed in the St. Nicholas Monastery. The icon remained there for another three years while a chapel was built for it at the Neglinen Gate. And on May 19, 1669, on the day the miraculous image was transferred to the new chapel, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich granted the Greek Archimandrite Dionysius a charter for eternal ownership of the St. Nicholas Monastery to the Athos Iveron Monastery. Since then, the Moscow St. Nicholas Monastery began to be called Greek. “Under fear of disgrace and anger,” the Greeks were only forbidden to bring foreign goods with them, so as not to embarrass Muscovites, and not to turn the monastery into a shopping center, and not to violate the strict rules of Moscow trade.

Soon, something like a Greek colony formed around the St. Nicholas Monastery, since the establishment of worship in Greek naturally attracted the “Constantinograd” and all Greek merchants to it. For them, near the monastery, the Greek Gostiny Dvor was built, from where the first Moscow coffee shop appeared: on holidays and on vacation, the “sons of the Hellenes” gathered in a separate building, drank heated wine and coffee, smoked, socialized, while the owner of the establishment prepared hot food for them. In Greek, such a meeting was called “estiatoria” (“place of feasting”), which in Russian distortedly sounded like “austeria” or “austeria”. (Under Peter I, austeria began to mean a kind of cafe serving tea, coffee, tobacco and newspapers, where the sovereign forcibly drove Muscovites who were reluctant to his innovations). The foreign traveler Reitensfels, who saw this Moscow Greek colony in the 17th century, noted that it was “slightly” inferior to the Greek quarter in Rome. The Greeks settled in the Nikolskaya area and on Ilyinka with entire families. And it was in the St. Nicholas Monastery that the Greek scholars, the Likhud brothers, who were invited to Moscow on the recommendation of the Eastern Patriarchs to teach at the Greek school, and then at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, established with their assistance, initially stayed.

The internal life and status of the St. Nicholas Monastery have since been determined by its new position. Monastics from Mount Athos were sent here every 4-7 years. According to Eastern custom, on the first day of Easter after Vespers, the Gospel was read here in different languages. Alexei Mikhailovich ordered that the Holy Cross Monastery and a wretched house on Bozhedomka with lands where Athonite monks built a country residence be added to the monastery. However, this caused an influx of visiting monks from “Palestinian countries” into the St. Nicholas Monastery and its possessions, and in 1694 the monks of the metochion petitioned Peter I to prohibit all outsiders from staying with them, citing the scarcity of supplies. The tsar, who did not like such questions, became angry at this request and in anger deprived the Athos courtyard of the Holy Cross Monastery, and then the wretched house. But with the participation of Peter, significant innovations took place at the St. Nicholas Monastery.

Firstly, during his time, Georgians who moved to Russia settled near the St. Nicholas Monastery due to the “Greek faith”, including the Georgian king himself, poet, translator and polyglot Archil II, who lived in this monastery from the end of the 17th century. Secondly, Peter’s page in the history of the St. Nicholas Monastery is connected with the name of Kantemirov - the Moldavian ruler Dmitry Kantemir and his descendants. Their family descended from Timur (Tamerlane) himself, and the surname meant “Khan-Temir”. Cantemir supported Tsar Peter in his fight against Turkey, and after the unsuccessful Battle of the Prut in 1711, he left with his family and two thousand subjects for Russia. For his loyalty, he was awarded the title of His Serene Highness, a stone house in Moscow on Nikolskaya Street next to the Greek Monastery, numerous estates in Russia and the Moscow region estate of Black Mud, which in 1775 Catherine II bought from his heir and renamed Tsaritsyno. The Kantemirs not only donated a lot to the St. Nicholas Monastery, but also equipped it in every possible way, since it became their family tomb.

D. Cantemir began the first large donations to the monastery and the construction of a new cathedral church in 1713, when his wife Cassandra died. However, work stopped almost immediately due to Peter the Great’s subsequent ban on stone construction in Moscow - all forces and resources were sent to St. Petersburg. And in 1723, Cantemir Sr. died, and according to the will of the deceased, he was buried next to his first wife in the monastery cathedral. At the end of his life, Peter I ordered the dilapidated cathedral to be dismantled and a new one built, but the royal will was fulfilled much later. In 1727, the Greeks built the lower stone cathedral church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Probably, the Athos image of the saint was transferred to it, since chapels were prohibited under Peter. And in 1734-36 Cantemir's heirs erected a second, upper church above it, consecrated first in the name of the Iveron Icon, and then in the name of the Assumption. According to legend, the construction of this new church took place after Kantemir’s daughter Marya, Anna Ioannovna’s maid of honor, died on Nikolskaya Street: as if the horses harnessed to her carriage ran away and it crashed. In fact, Marya Cantemir died only in 1757 and was also buried in the family tomb. And in 1744, the most famous representative of the Kantemirov family, Antioch Dmitrievich Kantemir, a Russian satirist and Russian ambassador to France, found his final rest here. In addition to them, representatives of the Georgian and Russian nobility and archimandrites of the monastery were buried in the monastery. In 1760, a chapel in the name of St. was consecrated in the Assumption Church. Dmitry Solunsky, arranged with the care of the Moscow Greek Andrei Kondikov on his father’s name day and later abolished.

Since then, the cathedral church has become two-story, with a beautiful stone staircase leading to it from Nikolskaya Street. The second church of the monastery, built at the fraternal cells back in 1644, was consecrated in the name of Sts. Konstantin and Elena, and in 1767 Matvey Dmitrievich Kantemir rebuilt it. There is another version, based on legend: as if the Constantine-Elenin chapel existed in the old monastery cathedral, dismantled by order of Peter, and having learned that Matvey Cantemir built a church with this dedication at the fraternal cells, it was connected by a passage with the second tier of the cathedral church . Below, under the Church of Constantine and Helena, there was an ancient chapel of St. Nicholas, with the miraculous image of the saint brought from Mount Athos. The bell tower stood separately.

However, in 1737, the Nikolsky Monastery burned down in the notorious Trinity Fire - the name came from the fact that the disaster broke out on the feast of the Holy Trinity, and the Kremlin Tsar Bell also perished in its fire. During the renovation, the ensemble of the monastery was formed, which remained until the very end of the 19th century.

In the 18th century, the status of the monastery was also affirmed: in 1764 it was designated as a 2nd class, non-communal, Greek monastery. Previously, the abbots of the monastery were subordinate to the Moscow Synodal Office, and since 1766 - directly to the Holy Synod. In the same year, it was promoted to the category of stauropegial monasteries, and monks from other Russian monasteries were ordered not to be placed in it. Since 1775, the monastery was included in the diocesan department, but was still assigned to the Athos Iveron Monastery.

Towards the end of the reign of Catherine II, the cathedral built by the Cantemirs, fragilely, fell into disrepair, and in 1795 its top collapsed. The Greek clergy turned to Emperor Paul I with a request to renovate the temple. He gave out 15 thousand rubles, and the same amount was collected in donations from Greek merchants living in Moscow. There is a version that the cathedral was then dismantled, and Matvey Kazakov himself built a new temple, but since the building is not mentioned in the lists of the great architect’s works, historians have questioned this version. It is more likely that the temple was simply renovated, and its bulbous dome rested on an elegant neck.

In 1812, the monastery shared the fate of Moscow churches and suffered greatly from Napoleonic hordes. Archimandrite Cosmas and four monks remained in the monastery with him. The enemy soldiers, having burst into the monastery, mocked the monks in every possible way and ordered them to carry the looted wealth to headquarters. The archimandrite, dressed in matting, was forced to drag a five-pound sack of flour on his back to the Novodevichy Convent, where the French units were billeted.

After the victory, the monastery was restored. And already in the 1820s, a story happened within its walls that spread throughout Moscow. Here, in the monastery chambers, the elderly Moscow “millionaire,” the Greek nobleman Zoy Zosima, “a venerable lover and most zealous benefactor of learning,” who had no heirs, settled into retirement. Moscow guidebooks spoke about it as a local attraction: the reason for this was the collection of treasures and coins that belonged to Zosima and especially the priceless pearl “Pelegrina” of 28 carats without one share. It seemed almost transparent and was so perfectly round that it could not lie quietly on the table but rolled all the time. For this constant “tendency to move” the pearl was nicknamed “Pelegrina” - the wanderer. According to legend, she actually traveled a lot by sea and land. Originally from India, the pearl passed from hand to hand of the highest European persons, was in the possession of the Spanish King Philip, then ended up in the hands of the French monarch Louis XVI, and after his execution it wandered somewhere else until it came to Zosima and visited Russia. According to other rumors, Zosima's brother bought it from the captain of a ship sailing to India. One way or another, all these treasures were in the monastery chambers under Zosima, and foreign and Russian travelers were taken to his Nikolsky Monastery as if on an excursion.

And in 1824, a young compatriot of Zosima, a native of the island of Corfu, Lieutenant Sivinis, came to Moscow, having come to Russia under the pretext of a passionate desire to enter military service. Charming, elegant, secular, he charmed everyone who knew him, and, having secured solid letters of recommendation, Sivinis was enrolled in a cuirassier regiment, the chief of which was Alexander I himself. The rake had money, which was needed not only for moving in social circles, but there was no need for a profitable marriage. And, having heard about the countless treasures of old Zosima, stored within the walls of the Moscow St. Nicholas Monastery, he undertook an unheard-of fraudulent scheme.

He came to the monastery and met Zosima. Having presented his fellow countryman with false rescripts on behalf of the emperor, Sivinis revealed to him that he was collecting funds for the liberation of Greece from the Turkish yoke, which is why the old man, tearing up, paid him 300 thousand. A few days later, the swindler brought him a “letter of gratitude” from the emperor, and Sivinis’s servant, disguised as the adjutant of the Moscow governor general, simultaneously delivered a letter from Empress Maria Feodorovna, in which she asked to loan the collection for display in St. Petersburg. The old man was saddened, but agreed to this too. Sivinis compiled a register of treasures and invited Zosima and his influential friends to sign it. Zosima did not understand Russian, but his influential friends feasted heavily, and in the end everyone signed the register, which in fact was a cleverly drawn up spiritual will, which is why all the treasures legally passed to Sivinis. After signing the “register”, the “adjutant” came and took away the collection, but the rogue servant turned out to be a match for the owner and immediately rushed off to Turkey with it.

The deception was discovered only a year later, and when Zosima learned about the theft of the collection, he could not withstand the blow, fell ill and died. The fate of the precious pearl remained unknown for a long time. According to one version, the old man did not want to part with it and hid it. According to another, the pearl was discovered at an auction a few years later, where Princess Yusupova bought it and brought it back to Russia. After the revolution, she was again taken abroad, and perhaps she has now found refuge in the British Museum in London. And Sivinis, only through diligent efforts at the court of his newly-made relatives - he managed to get married - was sentenced to deportation from Russia instead of exile to Siberia.

In 1892, the St. Nicholas Monastery was included in the Synodal Department, but remained dependent on the Athos Iveron Monastery and on the Patriarch of Constantinople: its name was mentioned on litanies in the churches of the monastery. In the upper Assumption Church there was the Iveron Icon, and its feast was established, according to Athos custom, on the third day of Easter. On Nikolskaya Street, far beyond the red line, the chapel of St. Nicholas.

All the buildings of the monastery became very dilapidated by the end of the 19th century, and at the turn of the century it was reconstructed according to the design of architects G.A. Kaiser and K.F. Busse: most of the old buildings were demolished, including the Church of Constantine and Helena with a chapel, and the old bell tower. In 1902, G. Kaiser built a huge building at Nikolskaya, 11, exactly along the red line of the street. It was both a chapel and a bell tower, crowned with a dome with a cross and a bell, of which now only the rotunda remains. And below, under the rotunda, where arched windows with kokoshniks on the facade are still visible, there was a chapel, into which a large beautiful porch led from the street. Moscow second-hand book dealers set up their shops inside its gates. (This building has miraculously survived to this day). The church of St. Constantine and Helena was abolished.

The monastery was closed in the early 1920s, the cathedral was demolished in 1935. The Romanian authorities, to whom Moldova then belonged, requested the remains of Prince Dmitry Cantemir, and they were transferred to Iasi, where they rest to this day. The ashes of his famous son were not requested, since he was considered a Russian subject, and Antiochus’s grave disappeared during the demolition of the St. Nicholas Monastery. Some of the tombstones were transferred to the museum at the Donskoy Monastery.

Now the site of the cathedral is a wasteland, the dome on the neck with the cross is broken, and the surviving buildings of the former cells are occupied by scientific institutions and various workshops with shops. The surviving chapel building with the former bell tower was later transferred to the Moscow Historical and Archival Institute. And now the surviving buildings are rented out to commercial organizations, despite the fact that the Patriarchal Compound has opened there.

St. Nicholas Edinoverie parish

Before the opening of the monastery, in this men's department of the Transfiguration Almshouse there had already existed since 1854 a Edinoverie church, under the name St. Nicholas Church of the Edinoverie, which is located at the Transfiguration Almshouse, with a parish located at it, which was not abolished even after the opening of the monastery.

On September 16, 1856, this place was visited by the former Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich (who died in 1865) and the Grand Dukes Alexander Alexandrovich (the future emperor) and Vladimir Alexandrovich. The monastery, at the request of all Moscow co-religionists, with imperial permission, was named Nikolsky in memory of the deceased Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, who visited the former St. Nicholas Church of Edinoverie.

View of the men's monastery across the Khapilovsky pond, 1888. , Public Domain

Inside the monastery there is a stone one-domed church with a low stone bell tower, built from the former Bespopovsky main chapel, which the Bespopovites called the cathedral chapel. It has two altars: the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, consecrated according to the Edinoverie rite by Saint Philaret (Drozdov) in 1857, and Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, consecrated by the same saint earlier - in 1854.

The consecration of the temples followed the Highest will of Emperor Nicholas I, as a result of the joining of the main non-priest parishioners of the Preobrazhensky House: the Guchkovs, Nosovs, Gusarovs, Bavykins, Osipovs and others. These parishioners built altar extensions and other devices at their own expense. A separate bell tower was built in 1876-1879 according to the design of the architect M. K. Geppener at the expense of benefactors - mainly A. I. Khludov and I. V. Nosov.

News

The pilgrimage service continues its work

06/14/2021 11:24 The pilgrimage service of the Staraya Ladoga Nikolsky Monastery was created with the blessing of Metropolitan Barsanuphius of St. Petersburg and Ladoga at the end of last year. The main task of the service is to organize excursions on the territory of the monastery, as well as interact with pilgrimage services and travel companies. Thanks to a joint agreement between the monastery and the organizers of tourist trips, this year, for the first time, excursions around the St. Nicholas Monastery are presented as a separate program. Those who choose it will be able to take advantage of additional services - visit the monastery museum or climb the bell tower. Please note that this opportunity is provided as part of an excursion from the pilgrimage service.

The pilgrimage service of the Staraya Ladoga Nikolsky Monastery draws the attention of the heads of travel agencies, museums and other organizations that today conduct their excursions on the territory of the monastery. A law has been established defining the special legal status of pilgrims and assigning the exclusive right to pilgrimage activities to religious organizations (signed on July 3, 2021). Changes were made to the federal laws “On the fundamentals of tourism activities in the Russian Federation” and “On freedom of conscience and religious associations.” The new law defines the status of a pilgrim and also defines pilgrimage trips. Thus, a “pilgrim” is an individual making a journey (trip) to visit places of religious veneration (pilgrimage) and religious sites located on the territory of the Russian Federation and abroad. As stated in the law, a pilgrimage trip is a journey lasting from 24 hours to 6 months in a row - in Russia or abroad, with at least one overnight stay to visit places of religious veneration, objects of religious significance and participation in rites and ceremonies. From now on, it is and only religious organizations that will be involved in accommodation, meals, transport and other services for believers, as well as “the establishment, maintenance and development of international relations and contacts for the purpose of organizing pilgrimage trips.” At the same time, religious organizations can involve tour operators in the organization of pilgrimage trips by concluding appropriate agreements with them. The law secures the preferential right of guides (tour guides) of religious organizations to conduct excursions when pilgrims and tourists visit holy places . Now a guide (tour guide) of a travel agency will have the opportunity to conduct a tour on the territory of a religious organization only if such an opportunity is enshrined in the agreement between the religious organization and the travel agency. In other cases, excursions will be conducted by guides of monasteries and parishes.

In this regard, from 2022, guides of other excursion organizations (travel agencies, pilgrimage services, etc.) will have to first obtain certification from the monastery’s pilgrimage service, without which it will be impossible to lead tourist and pilgrimage groups around the territory of the monastery.

Description of the monastery

Above the gate at the entrance from the former chapel there is a five-domed Church of the Exaltation. Adjacent to the church there is a wonderful library, bequeathed to the monastery by Alexei Ivanovich Khludov, opened in 1883; it contains many Greek and Slavic charatean (charter - chronicle) manuscripts, liturgical, dogmatic, instructive old printed books, books of a new printed theological and historical nature.

St. Nicholas Church (west side), GNU 1.2

On the lower floor there is a parochial school, opened in 1855 with funds from the monastery, previously supported by funds from the Preobrazhensky House. The abbot's cell is located in a small stone outbuilding on the northern side of the Assumption Church. Before the opening of the monastery, the caretaker lived here, and previously there was a priestless office. Mentors and leaders-trustees sat in it, discussed and decided all matters, approved and sent messages, instructions, etc. throughout Rus'. In a word, the main force of the Fedoseyev sect was once concentrated here. The brethren's cells are located on the eastern side of the Assumption Church, in a two-story stone building, where those in need were previously housed.

In 1907, the monastery had an abbot, 22 monks, and 41 novices.

Monastery after 1917

In 1917, most of the “Khludov Library” collected by A.I. Khludov entered the State Historical Museum.

By 1923, the monastery was closed and turned into the home of the Radio Factory commune. The main cathedral church was turned into a parish church. In the 1930s The walls and towers of the monastery were dismantled, and the south-eastern part was occupied by an expanded cemetery. In 1977-1980 under the leadership of I.K. Rusakomsky, the bell tower and the remaining part of the monastery walls were restored.

Entrance to the Nikolsky Edinoverie Monastery, GNU 1.2

And in 1923, the monastery was finally closed and the entire archive with the remains of manuscripts from the St. Nicholas Edinoverie Monastery ended up in the State Historical Museum, where it is kept to this day. A large number of ancient icons were also taken to the Historical Museum, from where some of them later ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery and a small number in the Kolomenskoye Museum. In the 1920s A labor school was opened in the building of the former monastery school and in the cells of the monastery, and later various institutions were located, for example, a dormitory for the Radio factory.

In the first half of the 1920s, the Soviet authorities transferred the temple into the possession of the renovationists. But the Edinoverie community did not liberate the entire temple and remained to exist in the front - Assumption part of the temple. The temple was divided into two parts, so that the main part of the temple with the Assumption throne was separated by a wall from the renovation - the refectory part. In the separated refectory part, in addition to the Nikolsky (left) aisle that existed since the mid-19th century, a new Assumption (right) aisle is being built.

By 1930, the Edinoverie community in the front - Assumption part of the temple practically ceased to exist. And in 1930, in connection with the liquidation of the Novopomorsky community in Tokmakov Lane, the Edinoverie - Assumption part of the temple was transferred by the Soviet authorities to the Old Believers of the Bespopovsky Novopomorsky persuasion, who occupy it to this day. The refectory - St. Nicholas part of the church with two chapels today belongs to the Orthodox parish. Icons from the 15th-17th centuries have been preserved in the interior.

History of the monastery

According to legend, the monastery was founded by Prince Alexander Nevsky in 1240 after the Battle of Neva, in which Ladoga residents also participated. The monastic chronicle directly indicates that the monastery was built “in memory of the lost Ladoga relatives” - the commander’s comrades-in-arms. After the battle, they were brought to Ladoga and piously buried on a hill, later called “Victory”. Thus, the monastery is at the same time a monument to Russian military glory.

The first documentary evidence about the Staraya Ladoga St. Nicholas Monastery was found in the quitrent census books of Obonezhskaya (1496) and Vodskaya Pyatina (1499-1500).