Andreevsky Monastery: yesterday, today, tomorrow

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

In the definition of "nationality in Russian" Count Uvarov in the 19th century included such concepts as autocracy and Orthodoxy. He believed that the Russian people were extremely religious and selflessly devoted to the tsar-father. If the second statement is rather controversial, then it is difficult to disagree with the first. No wonder Russia was famous for its churches, temples, cathedrals, and not a single settlement, even small villages, could do without God's house.

The status of the Lord's monastery

In one of the most beautiful places in Moscow, at the foot of the famous Sparrow Hills, stands the ancient Andreevsky Monastery (for the male brethren). It belongs to the oldest religious Orthodox buildings in Russia, because the monastery was founded no later than the 13th century, that is, 3 centuries after the adoption of Christianity by the Russians. The current status of the institution is stauropegal. It is assigned to a building or monastery in the event that the cross was erected over it by higher spiritual ranks. And this is very honorable and means that the Andreevsky Monastery and others like it are subordinate tonot to local dioceses, but directly to the patriarch himself and the highest synod.

The emergence of the monastery

According to oral legends, in the Moscow Captives around the 13th century, the Transfiguration Hermitage was organized, from which Andreevsky Monastery subsequently grew. The deserts were traditionally called the settlements of the monks, remote from a large crowd of people. Such sketes or communities were not uncommon in Russia. As Christianity was consolidated as the main religion, their number constantly increased. Andreevsky Monastery begins to be mentioned in the annals in the 16th century, when the “deserts” became numerous, and on its territory the “merciful husband”, as his contemporaries called him for patronage, good deeds, charity and exemplary morality, Fyodor Mikhailovich Rtishchev founded the temple. The main patron of the institution was the holy martyr Andrew Stratilat - a glorified warrior who suffered cruelly for his faith. It was no coincidence that Rtishchev considered that it was on this place that Moscow should find the Andreevsky Monastery. Indeed, in 1591, the Crimean Tatar Khan Kyzy-Girey shamefully fled from here with his army. The Orthodox people then considered that none other than Stratilat, to whom they prayed intensely, was involved in this miracle.

Time for change

Andreevsky Monastery on Sparrow Hills began to operate in 1648. It became the first refuge of the "Teaching Brotherhood" - a spiritual and educational center in which the most literate monks of that time gathered.time to study the available spiritual literature, translate books from the Greek language, create texts of a religious and educational nature. Or, as the ministers themselves said, for the sake of "book teaching." In fact, the monastery was the first Moscow Academy. Tsar-Democrat Peter ordered to open an institution at the monastery, in which homeless children, foundlings, and orphans were raised and educated. The country needed educated people, and Peter was not too worried about their origin. Unfortunately, the shelter lasted only 8 years. Under further Russian rulers, the temple somewhat loses its high significance. So Catherine the Second simply turned it into a Charity House, i.e. almshouse. Then the territory of the monastery is given under the cemetery to well-born Muscovites and monks of other Moscow monasteries. The Sheremetevs, Pleshcheevs and other famous representatives of the Russian nobility found their last refuge here. True, most of the necropolis (and burials were carried out here from the 13th to the 19th centuries) was destroyed in the first 20 years of Soviet power.

At the turn of the eras

The beginning of the 19th century for the Andreevsky Monastery was marked by the fact that new living quarters were built on its courtyard - for the almshouse that opened in 1806. It was established by the merchants of Moscow as a charitable institution. But the first quarter of the 20th century was a period of great trials. Under the power of the Bolsheviks, the temple ceased to function at all: it was closed. Gradually, the buildings and other buildings were dismantled, collapsed, and the foot of the Vorobyovy Kruch looked unsightly here. rebirththe monastery takes place only in 1991, when the Patriarchal Metochion was established here, the churches of Christ's Resurrection, the Apostle John the Theologian and Michael the Archangel were rebuilt and opened. St. Andrew's Church is working again. The monastery houses the Synodal Library. And already in 2013, the St. Andrew's male stauropegial monastery began to operate here.

Places of Faith

There are a large number of Orthodox monasteries in the capital of the Russian state. If you start listing all the monasteries in Moscow, their addresses will take more than one printed page. Therefore, let's focus on a few. This is an old women's monastery on Rozhdestvenka (Bogoroditsky stauropegial monastery). The second oldest monastery in Moscow is the Epiphany Monastery (it stands in Bogoyavlensky Lane, hence the name). Its founder is the son of Alexander Nevsky, Daniel. The Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery was once opened on Bolshaya Ordynka. Its second name is the Abode of Mercy and Love.