The Odigitrievsky convent in Chelyabinsk begins its history from the middle of the 19th century. His churches were the picturesque decoration of the city, a holy place, which the entire population loved and revered.
The street on which the monastery was then located was called the Nativity of Christ, then it was renamed, and now it is Zwilling Street in the very center of the city.
However, the address of the Odigitrievsky convent: 454135 Russia, Chelyabinsk, st. Energetikov, 21 A.
Why did this happen? Let's look into the past of the monastery to deal with this issue.
It's a pity, but you won't see the splendor of the monastery churches in this place. Now there is a hotel called "South Ural", a regional government building and a residential building.
The spring spring also disappeared, the burial places of its first nuns and abbesses, including the very first Mother Superior Agnia, who died in 1872.
Once upon a timeOdigitrievsky convent in Chelyabinsk belonged to the church - Odigitrievskaya and Voznesenskaya, located in the city center. In addition to them, there were two more churches Nikolskaya - the monastery farm and Serafimovskaya in the district of Art. Yurgamysh (Kurgan region).
Foundation time
It was the oldest monastery in the Orenburg diocese. The founder of the Odigitrievsky monastery was Polezhaeva Anna Maksimovna (mother Agnia in monasticism) - a peasant girl who was born in 1815 in the village of Varlamovo, Trinity district, Orenburg province. And she began her charitable work with a small women's community.
Anna from early childhood strove for a secluded monastic and pious life. When she was 26 years old, she, along with her three sisters, moved to a deserted island of Lake Chebarkul. There they dug out dugout cells for themselves, in which they lived for a year and a half. Then the women went on a pilgrimage to holy places.
After some time, Anna returned to the Urals and became a worker at the Ufa convent. Having studied all the nuances of monastic life in the monastery, she went to arrange a monastery in Chelyabinsk. She did not have the need and accidental circumstances to leave the worldly life and cut her hair into a nun. It was her calling.
Sisters
First, Polezhaeva bought a small house across the river near the Trinity Church. There she settled and soon began to receive everyone who wanted to share her monastic life with her. After some time, her sisters from that very first Chebarkul monastery moved in with her.
For five years, she receivedhalf a dozen girls of different ages. Among them were two five-year-old girls. Future nuns without means and help with humility were accustomed to the difficult life in the monastery. They wore monastic robes and prayed and worked tirelessly.
In 1848, Bishop Joseph of Ufimsky visited Chelyabinsk, who found the ascetics and blessed them to open a monastery in the central place of the city on Hristovozdvizhenskaya Street.
The history of the Odigitrievsky convent begins its countdown from the moment when, in October 1849, Anna Polezhaeva brought a petition to the city council for the allotment of land for the construction of a women's community, in which by that time there were 29 sisters. Her request was granted. They were given 5 acres of land. The document was signed on December 13, 1849.
Ascetic feat
At that time there were few Orthodox people in the city. Mostly they were foreigners. Therefore, the sisters, following the example of the Venerable Kiev-Pechersk Fathers Anthony and Theodosius, themselves dug cells underground.
Over time, the ascetic activity and work of the sisters was noted by Emperor Nicholas I himself.
The work of Mother Superior Anna and her ascetics was hard and restless, but he was crowned with success. On February 23, 1854, the Holy Synod addressed a report to Emperor Nicholas 1, who approved the name of the convent - Odigitrievskaya, Bogorodichnaya.
When the community was officially opened, daily services began to be held in the cemetery of the Kazan Mother of God church, located not far from the monastery. All this happened until the time when it was builtown temple. The sisters studied the church charter, reading in the church and singing from the elderly psalmist N. E. Biryukov.
Founding a community
The nuns supported themselves at first. They dressed flax, wove canvases, embroidered with beads and made paper flowers for icons, and also went to the Cossack fields to mow grass, reap bread and thresh grain.
So little by little the Hodegetrievskaya community came to life. And all this is not without the hard work of the nuns and their abbess.
The inhabitants often had a shortage of food and water, since the distance to the river was far away. Then Anna Polezhaeva hastened to dig a well in the monastery itself. Then she placed over it a six-sided wooden chapel, named after the Life-Giving Spring of the Most Holy Theotokos. On holy holidays, the consecration of water took place in this place.
Benefactors
The selfless work of women did not go unnoticed by the residents of the city. One of the first benefactors was the Stakheev brothers, who donated 2,800 rubles to the community. They were nephews of priest Alexy Agrov.
The Lord also sent the benefactor P. I. Ilinykh to the sisters for their humility and patience. He was a hardware owner. Local old-timers said that his last charitable deed was the construction of the Simeonovskaya Church on Semyonovskaya Hill. He was also buried there.
Time passed, the community grew, and the sisters did not have the right to take the veil as a nun. There was a need to transform it into the Odigitrievsky Convent in Chelyabinsk. On this occasion, they turned to the Orenburg Consistory withrequesting the status of a monastery.
Anna Polezhaeva became his abbess and took monastic vows with the name of Agnia.
Construction of the monastery
In a short period of time, the sisters built the first stone church. At first it was only one-story with the limit of Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves. Following, thanks to the help of benefactors, the upper main altar was erected in honor of the Hodegetrievskaya Mother of God. On November 1, 1860, the church cross and bells were raised. Since that time, the sisters were allowed to have a priest and a deacon in the temple.
Abbess Agnia built a two-story stone building with a refectory and cells for the sisters. Mother Agnia also organized a small candle factory on the territory of the monastery. The sisters quickly learned how to make candles and supplied the entire county with them. By this time, there were already 80 sisters and each carried her own obedience.
The hard work of the nuns
In addition to urban land, the Odigitrievsky convent in Chelyabinsk also had allotments outside the city in the form of a monastic estate in a place called Bogomazovo Logo, which was also organized by Mother Agnia.
This place is still located in the Leninsky district of the city. In 1860, with the help of the benefactor P. I. Ilyin, the abbess built a chapel there, which in 1864 she converted into a church in the name of St. Nicholas.
The sisters were in constant labor, like bees, and even organized gardening on the farm. In their nursery, they grew a huge amount of fruits and vegetables.crops.
The next abbess Rafaila created workshops of arts and needlework in the monastery. Teaching the sisters how to paint was her first job. And soon the goal was achieved.
Gradually, the skill of writing icons improved. I developed my own style of writing. The holy images painted in the monastery were in great demand. Some of them have been preserved to this day in the Kurgan Museum of Arts, in the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore and in private collections. According to museum staff, these monastic icons are characterized by the correct drawing and expressiveness, monumentality of images. During the heyday of the monastery, all the Ural dioceses were supplied with these icons.
Arrangement of the monastery
Abbess Rafaila continued to improve her monastery. In 1886 the foundation of a new Church of the Ascension of the Lord was laid. Four years later, it was consecrated and opened for worship.
When she was also built a new two-story building outside the fence of the monastery, which housed the parochial school. Then a few more outbuildings-workshops: seamstress, gold embroidery, bookbinding and others. A separate wooden building was built for the prosphora shop. The nuns baked prosphora not only for monastery churches, but also to order for other churches in the city.
The splendor of the monastery
Under Abbess Raphael, the well-being of the monastery increased every year. More than a thousand acres of land were bought, and in 1899 a water pipe was installed.
Through the efforts of the abbess and sisters, the monastery was equipped with a stonefence and two wooden outbuildings. The first was intended for old women, the second - for sick sisters. Then they rebuilt the clergy house, where the clergy and clergy lived.
Even more Mother Rafaila tried to pay attention to the splendor of the monastery, decorating it with icons and shrines, so that a prayerful mood would always be felt in the church during divine services.
At her request, in 1881, the icon of the Iberian Mother of God was brought from Athos, which was solemnly welcomed in the monastery and in the city. Everyone deeply revered this shrine.
In 1902, on July 9, again at the request of Abbess Rafaila, through the cassock novice Badrina Raisa, His Eminence Metropolitan Theognost of Kyiv and Galicia presented the monastery with the holy relics of the schmch. Kuksha of the Caves and St. Simon.
Icons
Residents of Chelyabinsk Agrovs and Kolbins ordered four large icons from the painting workshop to decorate the Ascension Church.
In 1903, with the help of benefactors, a copy of the miraculous image of the icon of the Assumption of the Mother of God, which was in the Great Church, was brought from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra to the Chelyabinsk Monastery.
As in the Lavra, the icon was placed in a gilded circle with radiance and images at the top - God the Father, the Holy Spirit and two angels supporting the icon. As in the Lavra, the icon was installed over the royal doors and lowered on silk cords for kissing by the worshipers. Since 1902, the service to the Dormition of the Mother of God was performed according to the charter of the Lavra.
Liquidation
Next abbessAnastasia had a very difficult time. She had the difficult fate of being the last abbess of the monastery, which the Soviet government mercilessly destroyed, like all Orthodoxy in the country. When Chelyabinsk was liberated from the Kolchak troops in 1919, the nuns immediately began to question the preservation of the monastery.
In the Department of Justice, they tried to get a petition to re-register the monastery as a democratic artel while maintaining the rights to own the monastery churches.
However, the new government did not need a monastery with its churches and buildings. Soon they began to be given to the use of orphanages, hospitals for alcoholics and the mentally ill, recreation clubs for workers, cinemas, etc. In a decree of 1920, 50% of the premises of the monastery were given over to shelters.
In March 1921, Sovietskaya Pravda published a decree on the closure of the monastery and the eviction of the nuns from it. But they didn't want to do it. Then they were arrested for counter-revolutionary agitation against the government.
All church valuables, decorations of icons made of gilding and silver were confiscated from the monastery. Furniture, utensils and food were also confiscated. The monastic life in the monastery ended in the most sad way.
All this horror happened in front of Abbess Anastasia and their priest. In the same month, the nuns, consisting of 240 people, together with the abbess, were sent to prison and military concentration camps for six months. Worldly people were also imprisoned by about 100 people.
Holy Intercession
But despite all these events, the monastery existed in the idea of a religious community. Afterafter their release, the nuns settled into apartments. Learning from the new law of January 1, 1922, which stated that the state was separate from the church, they were able to register as a religious group. All this was done in order to get the use of the Ascension Church. But in the same period, a group of renovationists called "The Living Church" was created. And it is they who are given the use of the Ascension Church.
At this moment, you must definitely remember the name of St. Luke of Crimea. It was he who waged an uncompromising struggle against the Renovationists. On June 6, while under arrest, he wrote a testament urging the laity to remain faithful to Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and resist with all their might the renovationist church movements, among which was the Living Church. However, this in no way meant a physical confrontation, but was directed towards spiritual aspects. Saint Luke asked to go to such churches where worthy priests who did not submit to the boar serve. However, he asked not to rebel against the authorities, since God placed her over them because of human sins and ordered them to humbly obey her.
Closing
Renovationists received not only the desired Ascension Church, but along with it other churches - Odigitrievsky, Nikolsky, Pokrovsky and various monastic buildings. At the same time, divine services were held in them very rarely.
The Soviet government at first supported various sects and non-traditional formations in their country. But then they were also subjected to repression.
In October 1926, the Ascension Church was closed forthe small size of the community and the rarely organized services. Crosses and domes were removed from it. Soon the Odigitrievsky church was also closed. By the year 30, all the monastery buildings were demolished. Nothing reminded me of my former life.
Beginning of the period of revival of the Odigitrievsky Monastery
Only the church of St. Nicholas on the monastery's estate has survived. But a vegetable base was also organized on its territory, and from this the temple was simply disfigured. In 1936, the directorate of the Sadovoye farm was located here.
In September 1997, the offices of this economy again moved to the Chelyabinsk diocese. It was the only building of the Odigitrievsky monastery without any amenities, electrical wiring, with broken windows and rotten floors.
At the same time, the construction of a new temple in honor of the icon of the Virgin "Joy of All Who Sorrow" began. Priest Vladimir Maksakov became its first rector. On November 6, 1999, the temple was consecrated. At first it was single throne, then two more limits appeared.
In 2002, a bell tower was added to the temple and its old fence was returned. A Sunday school was built in 2011.
In the description of the Odigitrievsky monastery in our time, it should be noted that its only surviving temple is an object of cultural heritage. It has three limits: the central one - in honor of the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos "Joy of All Who Sorrow", the left one - in honor of St. Nicholas, the right one - in the name of the Prophet Moses the God-Seer.
In the temple in front of the main icon on Sundays, prayers are held with the reading of an akathist. Today atthere are many ancient icons, once donated by parishioners. However, many shrines disappeared without a trace, including the icon of the Iberian Mother of God, the relics of St. Simon and the martyr Kuksha. But the image of the prophet Moses returned to the temple. This icon was in St. Nicholas Church. Believers saved her and safely hid her during the time of theomachism. When the monastery was revived, they returned it. Now the icon is kept in the altar room.
Many and good years
The date of December 27, 2012 was marked by one very important event. It was then that the revival of the Odigitrievsky convent began. At the same time, the first tonsure was performed. In 2015, the Metropolitan of Chelyabinsk opened a monastery and appointed abbess Evsevia (Lobanova), wishing her a long and blessed summer.
Sisters began to come here from different cities of Russia. From the first days of the formation of the monastery, its inhabitants began to restore archival materials and preserve the heritage of the Odigitrievsky monastery. The list of the nuns of the pre-revolutionary period of the monastery's life was partially restored. The townspeople began to carry to the temple pre-revolutionary liturgical books, icons and things that once belonged to the nuns. The icon-painting workshop was opened again, where the canonical icon-painting of Andrei Rublev's school of the 15th century was revived.
Memory
The inhabitants of the Odigirievsky Monastery venerate the memory of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia with special trepidation. And it is no coincidence that the holy relics of St. Luke appeared in the monastery. According tohistorical facts, he received 11 years in prison and exile for defending the Orthodox faith.
On February 10, 2019, Abbess Evsevia herself brought the relics from Simferopol. On that day, a moleben was served with a canon to the saint, after which all the parishioners were able to venerate the great shrine.
Those who wish to pray in this monastery are informed of the schedule of divine services in the monastery: at 8:30 am - the beginning of the morning liturgy; 16:45 - evening.
On Sundays, the early Liturgy starts at 6:30, late - 8:15, memorial service at 11:00, 15:00 - paraklisis, 16:45 - evening.
Many pilgrims are interested in the question of how to get to the Odigitrievsky convent. It is easy to get to it by minibuses No. 77, 91 to the stop. "TK Lightning".
To do this, you must use a map of the city of Chelyabinsk. She is shown above.
