Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery: description, history of foundation, reviews

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

For centuries, the most important part of the national culture, as well as one of the main factors that unite Russian society, is the Orthodox faith. After the most severe period of post-revolutionary unrest and mass persecution, which the church was subjected to everywhere in Soviet times, churches and monasteries are being actively revived in Russia today. According to reviews, the Gornalsky Belogorsky Monastery is a place with a special atmosphere in which kindness, peace, love, peace and silence reign. Truly, the soul rests here, I want to become cleaner and do good.

Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery: acquaintance

The monastery is located 30 km from the town of Sudzhi (Kursk region) on the white chalk cliffs of one of the picturesque banks of the Psel River. According to legend, during the reign of the Pereyaslav princes herethere was an ancient fortification. The desert is located on a hill, surrounded on all sides by deep ravines, in a surprisingly beautiful place. The view of the monastery from the highway, as many visitors assure, is truly mesmerizing. There is a comfortable hotel for pilgrims. The general impression of the guests who left reviews of the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery is expressed in a few words: in these places it is unusually easy to breathe, here a person literally finds enlightenment. Date of the first mention of the monastery: 1671. Desert address: Gornal village, Sudzhansky district, Kursk region. The rector is Abbot Pitirim.

History of the founding of the monastery

Approximately in 1671 (as already mentioned, scientists consider this date to be the time of the founding of the monastery) hieromonks of the Ostrogozhsk Divnogorsk monastery devastated by the Tatars (Voronezh region) Lavrenty and Theodosius settled on these lands together with Elder Nektariy. Soon, the tsar gave the cloisters land, a mill on the Psel River, which flows near the village of Velikiye Rybitsy, as well as many books, vestments, vessels and various church utensils. From the Ostrogozhsky monastery, the settlers brought an icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, in whose honor a small wooden church was erected here.

The first abbot of the desert was Hieromonk Theodosius. The monastery lived by selling lime. With the proceeds, the inhabitants erected a wooden church in the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which, due to its significant size, began to be called a cathedral. In documentsits description has been preserved. The temple had a stone mosaic floor, a beautiful carved iconostasis, bright and fresh icons in the western vestibule, and another iconostasis in Greek writing. The main attraction of the cathedral was the image of Our Lady of Pryazhevskaya, painted on canvas. However, it is known that the monastery was secularized shortly after its foundation. The Transfiguration Cathedral was used as a parish church until 1863.

Decrepit

By 1733, the hermitage “came into disrepair”: the bell tower fell, the Transfiguration Church became unsuitable for services. The wooden buildings of the monastery were dismantled, the material was used to build a chapel in the cemetery near the monastery, in which ancient iconostases were placed. At the same time, during the reign of Abbot Paisius, a stone church in the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a bell tower and a monastery wall were erected in the monastery.

On the economic independence of the monastery

In 1770, the Gornal St. Nicholas Belogorsk Monastery had 80 peasant households. The monastery received the largest income from two factories, lime and brick, melons, orchards, wax and honey from its own apiaries. There were also livestock (working oxen were especially kept).

On Nikolin's day, a fair was held in the desert. In 1777, a new stone church was consecrated in the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Monastery in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. In 1781 - 1784. a refectory was built on the site of the old wooden St. Nicholas Church. ATIn 1785, the monastery had a fairly well-appointed appearance: it had two monastic churches, a fraternal and rectory building, as well as a spacious refectory surrounded by wooden walls with four towers.

Although the economic independence of the Gornalsky Belogorsky Monastery for some time saved it from closing (the authorities repeatedly made such attempts), nevertheless, in 1785 the monastery was closed and turned into a parish. Only the Transfiguration Church remained from the desert. New Church of St. Nicholas, monastic cells and other buildings were dismantled into bricks.

About miraculous spontaneous combustion

After the Gornalsky Belogorsky Monastery was closed, miraculous self-ignition of lamps and candles began to take place in the Transfiguration Church in the mornings, which were repeated until the monks opened the Pryazhevsky Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos to the public. The image was brought in 1671 from the Divnogorsk monastery devastated by the Tatars, along with the icon of St. Nicholas. The opening of the image took place in 1792, and since then she began to bring miraculous healing. Monastery restoration

In 1858, Kosma Kupreev, one of the we althy Sudzhan merchants, received healing from the Pryazhevo miraculous image, and in gratitude he took a vow to restore the hermitage at his own expense. In 1863, he received permission from the tsar. By the order of the sovereign, the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery was to be restored under the name of the Belogorskaya Nikolaev Hermitage withthe establishment of an archimandry in it. One of the first inhabitants of the monastery was the merchant himself and his sons.

In 1865 a stone church dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was laid in the monastery, in 1869 the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos was consecrated. The third monastery church - a cathedral church in the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord - was founded in 1888

It is known that in 1878 the great Russian writer F. M. Dostoevsky, who repeatedly visited the Belogorsk monastery. The prose writer reflected the impressions of these visits in his novel The Brothers Karamazov.

Thirty years after the beginning of the resumption of the desert, a magnificent architectural ensemble of the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery has grown over the plain, perfectly combined with the local picturesque landscape. The domes of the Church of the Intercession and the Transfiguration Cathedral, built in the Russian-Byzantine style, could be admired from a distance of tens of kilometers.

About closing

In 1922, the desert was closed, its premises were given to a colony in which juvenile delinquents were kept. After the war 1941-1945. in several surviving buildings, a boarding school was placed for the children of servicemen who died at the front.

To this day, the building of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, a refectory, a fraternal building, a hotel for pilgrims, several service and outbuildings, a tower and monastery walls (almost completely destroyed) have survived in the monastery.

New restoration of Gornalsky St. Nicholas Monastery

The monastery was returned to the diocese in December 2001, at the same time they resumed the annual religious procession with the miraculous image of the Pryazhevsky Mother of God. After the transfer of the monastery to the diocese, it underwent a large-scale restoration.

How much restoration work was carried out?

The roof of the temple complex was repaired in the monastery, the fraternal and abbot's cells were equipped, the roof of the fraternal and administrative buildings, as well as the holy gates, were re-roofed. Also, the floor in the altar of the St. Nicholas Church was replaced, completely sorting out the beams, so before that there was a stage here (in the Soviet period there was a club in the temple). They set up an oak iconostasis, painted icons of the Deesis tier, set up large icon cases for the miraculous Pryazhevsky icon of the Mother of God and the icon of the Kiev Caves saints, in the ark of which fragments of holy relics are kept.

In 2008, the painting of the temple was completed, which was carried out by famous Moscow icon painters-restorers Alexander Lavdansky and Alexei Vronsky. The masters painted the facade, side and western walls of the temple, as well as the walls and vaults of the altar.

The fraternal building was subjected to a significant reconstruction, in which the floors that collapsed 10 years ago were restored, heating was installed, and a communications network was laid. In addition, the walls of the monastery refectory, located on the basement floor, were plastered.

Resident Today

The monastic brotherhood has eight monks, among whom there are laborers and novices. A large sponsorship of the monastery is provided by Anatoly Ivanovich Dzyuba, a native of these places, who built a church in honor of the Nativity of the Mother of God in his small homeland, from which the modern history of the monastery began, and also contributed to the restoration of the miraculous Pryazhevsky Icon of the Mother of God. Today, an active pilgrimage of believers from different cities of Russia is made to the monastery.

In conclusion

Historically, Orthodox monasteries are considered by many to be places of great spiritual power. They are protected by the state as cultural, historical and architectural monuments, behind the walls of which the works of outstanding masters of icon painting, jewelry, masterpieces of foundry and chased crafts, unique old handwritten books have accumulated for centuries.

However, there are publications whose authors claim that the past and present of Orthodox monasteries are too embellished. In their opinion, numerous legends about the “miracles” and “feats” of holy people, about the “healing” power of monastic springs and “miraculous” icons are fictitious, aimed at fooling the common people and strengthening religious propaganda. Many prominent Russian thinkers, figures of science and culture of the past in their writings called the monasteries powerful feudal lords who took over the farms of peasants from the surrounding villages, and the church - a rotten system with a developed vertical of humiliation. Today, from time to time, egregious cases of violations of churchinstitutions of state law and human dignity.

What is an Orthodox monastery for you: a place of spiritual power or a hotbed of obscurantism?