Yoshkar-Ola and Mari diocese was established on June 11, 1993. By decision of the Holy Synod and with the blessing of the patriarch himself, she was separated from the Kazan diocese. In the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the village of Semyonovka, Patriarch Alexy II, while serving the Divine Liturgy, performed the rite of consecration of Archimandrite John (Timofeev) as a bishop. By the end of the nineties, the diocese of Mari (the full and correct name is Yoshkar-Ola and Mari) consisted of a dozen urban and fifty rural churches. The Mironositsky Monastery was also rebuilt and the Mother of God-Sergius Hermitage was founded.
The Diocese of Mari determined its main administrative center in the city of Yoshkar-Ola, and the Ascension Cathedral became its cathedral.
History of creation. Repression
The 19th century is considered very fertile for this land and rich in temple construction. A third of all these structures were built between 1811 and 1829. It was at this time that the future diocese of Marirebuilt churches in the villages of Pokrovskoye, Sotnur, Upper Ushnur, Kuknur, Novy Torjal, Semyonovka, Kozhvazhi, Morki, Pektubaevo, Arda, Yelasy, Toktaybelyak, Korotni, Arino, Paigusovo.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the most terrible repressions began, which closely affected the entire church clergy (both monastics and laity). Powerful waves of destruction and destruction of holy monasteries and temples swept across the country.
In Yoshkar-Ola, the Entrance-Jerusalem and Trinity churches were destroyed. Executive bodies, under various pretexts, terminated contracts with religious communities and demanded that all places of worship be returned to them. In 1938-1940 rural churches were massively closed. According to statistics, there were 155 Orthodox monasteries in the Mari Territory before the revolution, but then only 9 remained. However, worship was forbidden in them.
Residents
The Yezhov Myrrh-Bearing Convent and the Mother of God-Sergius Hermitage of the Mari Diocese became active monasteries, and the Vvedensky Vershino-Sumsky, Gornocheremissky Mikhailo-Arkhangelsky, Muserskaya Tikhvinskaya hermitages became inactive.
On January 7, 1938, the last vicar bishop, Hieromartyr Leonid (Antoshchenko), was martyred. After the Great Patriotic War, all parishes of the MASSR remained under the control of the Gorky diocese (in the period from 1957 to 1993). In 1993, the Mari diocese became independent.
For many years, the diocese of Mari has been ruled by Archbishop John Ioanovich Timofeev, who began as a novicein the Pskov-Caves Monastery, then graduated from the theological seminary and academy in Moscow. Statistics show that today there are 92 churches in the diocese, 104 parishes, 2 monasteries, 41 chapels. Blagovest.”
Ascension Cathedral. Yoshkar-Ola
The cathedral, which will be discussed further, has been the cathedral of the Yoshkar-Ola and Mari diocese since 1993. The Ascension Cathedral of Yoshkar-Ola is valued as a monument of Russian architecture of the 18th century. The date of its foundation is considered to be 1756. Under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, it was rebuilt at his own expense by the merchant Pchelin Ivan Andreevich, whose house is still located next to the temple. In 1915, a higher primary school, a real school, a parish school and a women's gymnasium were located on its territory. In the early 1920s, the clergy of the church went to the Renovationists, but then, at the request of the parishioners, they brought a prayer of repentance (for this they went to Nizhny Novgorod to see Metropolitan Sergius Starodsky).
New owners
But then new trials came for the clergy - years of hard times, arrests, exiles and executions. In 1935, the temple was handed over to the renovationists, and as a result, in 1937 it was closed, the rector Margaritov Peter was shot. In 1938, the temple was transferred to the radio committee, then there was a beer warehouse in the temple, in 1940 - the partnership "Mary the Artist", later its ownerturned out to be a brewery. The temple fell into complete decay: a drum with a head, a bell tower, a stone fence were demolished, wall paintings were destroyed, a two-story factory building was added.
The life of the parish resumed in the 90s. It was restored, and in 2009 the bell tower of the temple was rebuilt.
