Holy Ascension Florovsky Monastery (Ukraine) - description, history, location. Exact address and website. Tourist reviews, photos and videos.

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The Holy Ascension Florovsky Monastery is the oldest convent in the city of Kyiv and is located at the foot of Kiselevskaya (Castle) Mountain, in Podol. Famous women in Rus' lived and took monastic vows here - Princess Shakhovskaya, Princess Ekaterina Miloslavskaya, Countess Apraksina and Alexandra Melgunova, who later founded the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery.

The Holy Ascension Florovsky Monastery in Kyiv existed back in 1482, but the first documentary mention of the holy monastery dates back to 1566 and is found in a charter written by the King of Poland Sigismund II Augustus to the Kyiv prince K.K. Ostrozhsky. The document states that the rights to manage the monastery, located at the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus, should be transferred to Archpriest Yakov Gulkevich, and subsequently, to his clergy descendants. Divine services, according to this charter, should be conducted according to Greek custom.

The oldest building in the monastery is the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus, and the most interesting from an architectural point of view is the Ascension Church. The uniqueness of the cathedral is that it harmoniously combines the features of a cross-domed church with the arrangement of domes along one longitudinal axis, characteristic of wooden Ukrainian architecture.

History of the monastery

The Florovsky Monastery existed even before the devastation of Kyiv by Mengli-Girey. Thus, the official painting of Kyiv, compiled in 1682, speaks of the existence of a nunnery in Podol with two wooden churches. One is in the name of the holy martyr Florus.

Soon after the monastery was transferred to the jurisdiction of Gulkevich, it fell into a pitiful state and the heirs renounced their rights to the Florovsky monastery on the condition that the monastery would belong to the Orthodox Church.

Over time, the monastery became a significant center not only of the religious life of Kyiv, but also a center of education and culture. So, in 1870, a school for girls from low-income families was opened on the territory of the monastery, and until the end of the 19th century, an almshouse was organized.

The monastery still lives according to the charter of Basil the Great, which is confirmed in the deed of gift of Iakov Gulkevich, and old traditions are honored in it: the rite of tonsure takes place at night, the ancient monastic form is preserved.

Shrines of the monastery

The monastery houses the second (and last) copy of the icon of the Mother of God “Look at Humility,” which also has healing properties.

How to get there

You can get to the monastery from the Kontraktovaya Ploshchad metro station, then along Konstantanovskaya Street towards the Samson fountain, past the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin.

At the beginning of June in Kyiv it is hot, the lilacs are blooming, the rose bushes are in buds, the smell of grass that was cut a few days ago, and now it is turning into hay right in the middle of the city, on the steep green hills. The round-faced tram descends from the mountains to the Dnieper, to Podol, where there are so many ancient churches and monasteries, where the walls of the St. Florus Ascension Monastery keep cool even in the heat. There a spring runs from under the mountain, rustling with its wings, flocks of pigeons descend from high churches, birds sing in the branches of fruit trees, and the story of one of the nuns of the monastery flows, a story about the history of the ancient Florovsky monastery.

In ancient times, trade was in full swing in Kiev Podil, and stables probably stood near the place where the monastery later arose. Horse breeders praised the thoroughbred horses, and fastidious buyers looked at them. From ancient times, the martyrs Florus and Laurus were revered in Rus' as the patrons of livestock breeders, because, according to legend, during the discovery of their honorable relics, the loss of livestock stopped. Apparently, it was horse traders who built a temple here in the name of Saints Florus and Laurus, calling on God’s blessing for their labors.

When was the first temple built here, and when did the women’s monastery grow around it? It is known that it existed even before the destruction of Kyiv by Mengli-Girey in 1482. In the summer of 1566, in the charter of the Polish king Sigismund Augustus II, the monastery was called “long existing” in this place, and the right to hold the monastery and “perform services there according to Greek custom and law” was transferred to Archpriest Jacob Gulkevich. In 1632, the grandson of Father Jacob, John Bogush-Gulkevich, took monastic vows at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and transferred the rights to the monastery to Abbess Agathia “and after her to the coming Abbess... both the present and future legislators.”

In 1711, the Ascension Convent, located opposite the holy gates of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, was annexed to the Florovsky Monastery. Together with the property and land of the Florovskaya monastery, the name of the Ascension Monastery also passed, and from then on it began to be called the St. Florovskaya Ascension.

Before the revolution, the St. Florus Monastery was a thriving monastery. In addition to five stone churches, there was an almshouse and a hospital at the monastery, and a school for girls from poor families. In total, the monastery had about forty buildings serving various needs of the monastery, and more than eight hundred nuns labored here.

After the October Revolution, many monasteries and churches in Kyiv, including the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, were abolished. By the grace of God, the Florovskaya monastery was not closed for so long: in 1929, monastic life stopped here, and during the German occupation, in the year 1941, sisters reappeared in the monastery. They didn’t go far - they lived here, nearby, on Podol. The monastery was restored after its desolation by Abbess Flavius ​​(Tishchenko). As Svetlana, a novice of the monastery, told me, at that time only schema-monasteries and novices labored in the monastery. Then the novices of the forties took monastic vows, but no new ones appeared in the monastery: in the early sixties, during the Khrushchev persecutions, it was forbidden to accept young people into the monastery.

In 1960, the Kazan Church was rebuilt into a sewing workshop, a workshop of the Ukrerestavratsiya association was located in Voskresensky and Refectory, and many cell buildings were taken away from the mothers. In 1962, the nuns were discharged from the monastery, and the Florov sisters had to rent housing, work in the world, and after work rush to the monastery for obedience. From 1961 to 1980, the number of sisters in the monastery decreased fivefold...

Two years ago, during my visit to the Florovsky Monastery, all the churches had already been returned to the monastery, but services were held only in the Ascension Cathedral. The Holy Trinity Church, which stood on Castle Hill (Kiselevka), at the foot of which the monastery is located, has been lost forever. The temple was blown up during Soviet times, only the foundation remained. Here, on Kiselevka, there used to be the cells of the mothers and the graves of those who had already moved into the eternal abodes. Unfortunately, the cemetery was also destroyed, only individual graves remained. The nuns of the monastery come up here to Radonitsa together with their priests and pray for the repose of the departed sisters.

After getting acquainted with the monastery, I decided to climb Castle Hill, densely overgrown with trees, and asked the novice Svetlana:

Will you tell me later how to get up the mountain?

Oh, it’s better for you not to go up the mountain yourself! - the sister answered fearfully.

What is it?

The fact is that now the mountain... There are graves only at the very top. In general, she is wild. Satanists have been gathering there lately. They built a building there, a very bad one. We are not blessed to go up the mountain ourselves. This is very, very dangerous, especially for girls! We walked only together, with the priest in front...

But these people don’t do any nasty things to the monastery?

No, nothing, thank God...

Florovsky ascetics

Many ascetics labored in the St. Florus Monastery, whose memory is carefully preserved in the monastery. For example, Princess Natalia Borisovna Dolgorukova (in the monasticism of Nektarios), the widow of Prince Ivan Alekseevich Dolgorukov, who fell into disgrace. Or two abbess: Smaragda (Norova), who wrote the once popular book “Reverent Christian Reflections” and Parthenia (Adabash) - the author of spiritual poems, compiler of the service to Saints Cyril and Methodius, the first biographer of the Venerable Parthenius of Kyiv... But with special love they talk here about Reverend Mother Alexandra (Melgunova), founder of the Diveevo monastery, who took monastic vows at the Florovsky Monastery, and about the nun Elena (Bakhteeva), who labored here at the beginning of the 19th century.

Mother Alexandra, in the world Agafia Semyonovna Melgunova, came from an old noble family, was the widow of a colonel and a wealthy landowner, was engaged in charity work and traveled a lot to holy places. Around 1760, when mother was asceticizing in the Florovsky Monastery, the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to her in a subtle dream and commanded her to go to the north of Russia, where she would be shown a place to found a great monastery. Heading from Murom to the Sarov hermitage, mother stopped to rest in the town of Diveevo, where she was again honored to see the Mother of God, who told her: “Here is the limit that Divine Providence has set for you.”

Having settled in Diveevo, Mother Alexandra sold her estates, set about seven hundred peasants free, and donated most of the capital for the construction of churches. About twelve temples are known to have been built with this money. Mother personally helped build a church in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God on the spot where the Mother of God appeared to her. The ascetic lived in Diveevo for twenty years, helping the peasants who lived nearby, instructing them in spiritual life, and looking after their children. In 1789, before her death, the Venerable Alexandra gave her last savings to the builder of the Sarov Monastery, Father Pachomius: a bag of gold, a bag of silver and two bags of copper, asking him to take care of the three Diveyevo sisters who remained orphans.

The Monk Seraphim of Sarov honored the memory of the saint of God and taught everyone every morning and every evening to bow to her grave, praying like this: “Our lady and mother, forgive me and bless me! Pray that I too may be forgiven, just as you have been forgiven, and remember me throne of God!" Now the relics of Saint Alexandra rest in the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Diveyevo Monastery.

Thus, both historically and spiritually the St. Florus Monastery is connected with the Diveyevo monastery. The local sisters especially revere Father Seraphim, and shortly before my arrival, the abbess of the Diveyevo monastery, Abbess Sergia, visited the Florovsky monastery. Opposite the entrance to the Ascension Cathedral, on the wall of the Church of St. Nicholas, there is a large painting: St. Seraphim praying on a stone in the forest.

Near the Resurrection Church of the monastery, under a glazed canopy, there is a grave, to which all pilgrims visiting the monastery go to bow. In this grave, in the coffin that Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk prepared for himself, lie the remains of the nun Elena (Bekhteeva). Nun Elena has not been officially canonized, but she is highly revered in the monastery, and, according to the nuns of the monastery, many receive help through prayers at her grave.

In the world, nun Elena's name was Ekaterina; she was born in 1756 in Zadonsk, into a noble family. In the eighteenth year of her life, secretly from her parents, the girl went to one of the Voronezh monasteries, took in an orphan and began to live peacefully in the monastery. In 1783, the great ascetic of that time, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, died, and nun Elena unexpectedly found herself the owner of the coffin that the saint had prepared for himself.

The saint kept this coffin, very modest, upholstered in black cloth, for a long time, prayed and cried near it and, like many saints, even slept in it. He asked to be buried in this coffin. When the deceased saint was dressed in the bishop's vestments, it turned out that this coffin was too small for him, and the saint was solemnly buried in another. When the property of the deceased was distributed, his old coffin went to the nun Elena. And now this ascetic prayed and cried over the wretched coffin, considering herself unworthy to rest in it.

Subsequently, Saint Tikhon appeared to nun Elena in a dream and consoled her in difficult circumstances. The fact is that, like many people of righteous life, she not only enjoyed the respect of many, but also aroused envy towards herself. When lay people began to come to nun Elena for guidance, the abbess of the monastery disliked her and began to try to remove her from the monastery. The day came when the ascetic had to leave the monastery, and she, accompanied by her close friend, nun Eugenia, went to her homeland.

The life of the nuns in the world was very difficult, and in the end they managed to enter the monastery again, this time in the Kiev Florovsky monastery. But here, too, trouble awaited the sisters: there was a fire in the monastery twice, and the cell of the ascetics burned down twice. The friends lived in poverty near Kyiv, until, finally, at the request of Metropolitan Eugene of Kyiv, they were again accepted into the Florovsky Monastery - now forever. Here nun Elena was very loved by all the monastery elders, and the Lord no longer sent her such difficult trials.

The ascetic died in old age, in March 1834. Before her death, she received the Holy Mysteries of Christ and saw the Chalice with the Gifts surrounded by heavenly radiance. Nun Elena was buried in the tomb of St. Tikhon, which she kept for so many years and carried with her during all her wanderings.

Now there are about two hundred and forty sisters working in the St. Florus Monastery, and Abbess Anthony (Filkina) is in charge. There are many novices in the monastery, among whom there are very young girls.

How many years are sisters tested before tonsure? - I asked the novice Svetlana.

Well, it happens in different ways. Mother, through her prayers, determines this herself. It happens that a person lived in a monastery for several years and was honored with tonsure. And then everyone understands that he really was internally mature. We don’t know what people have experienced in the world. As our mothers say, it is not known who ate what porridge. And the other one may live here for a long time, already be an old man, and still go to the novices. I now live in the cell of one mother, who was already quite old, and still wore a cassock and a scarf. This mother was sick with dropsy for a very long time and almost never left her cell. And before her death she became worse, they called the priest, offered unction, tonsured her hair, and she died.

You know, there is such a story in the lives of the Pechersk saints. One brother was a schema-monk, and when he died, it turned out that the Lord counted him as a novice. And the other was a novice for people, and a schema-monk for the Lord. Therefore, sometimes old mothers can be just novices, and some can be tonsured early. This means absolutely nothing. The main thing is who they are to the Lord. The Lord himself was an eternal novice.

Shrines of the monastery

When we entered the Ascension Cathedral, the sisters were re-clothing the temple before the Feast of All Saints. Trying not to disturb them, we walked around the temple and examined the icons especially revered in the Florovsky Monastery.

Until the twenties of the last century, the miraculous Rudensky Icon of the Mother of God was located in the monastery. Apparently, the icon was stolen from the temple: the thief must have been tempted by the beautiful robe, decorated with diamonds. But now in the Ascension Cathedral you can venerate the copy of the miraculous image.

The right aisle of the cathedral is consecrated in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and in it there is a locally revered Kazan icon, in front of which they pray for deliverance from blindness. Two more icons of the Mother of God are especially revered in the monastery: the Tikhvin icon and the “Quick to Hear”, decorated with chains and crosses - signs of gratitude to those who, through prayers before this image, received help from the Mother of God.

Above the icon of the Quick to Hear is the image “Look upon humility,” Sister Svetlana quietly tells me. - You've probably heard about the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, which is kept in the Holy Vvedensky Monastery? The image of the Mother of God was miraculously imprinted on the glass that covered this icon. For thirty years we kept this image, and now here is a copy of it. It is also miraculous, because quite recently a reflection also appeared on its glass. This happened when the glass was removed to wipe off dust. They took it off - and there was exactly the same display as in the Vvedensky Monastery...

And in general, there are cases when some icons that are in a darkened state...on them the colors seem to be renewed! And the icon brightens. I will show you one such icon. We just can’t understand what it’s called: some say Hungarian, others Romanian. Just a couple of years ago it was just a dark board. And suddenly the colors began to appear on their own, and now the image is clearly visible. This is very difficult to explain somehow, except perhaps by the fact that it is through the prayers of the mothers that everything is restored.

The image of Saint Seraphim of Sarov, embroidered by the abbess of the monastery Flavia (Tishchenko), is amazing. This is such skillful work that at first glance it seems as if the icon was not embroidered, but painted. The image of Father Seraphim is completely transparent, light, and the smile on the face of the saint gladdens the heart.

In the altar of the cathedral there is a reliquary with particles of the relics of the Pechersk saints. In the temple you can venerate the icons with particles of the relics of St. Job of Pochaev, the Great Martyrs George the Victorious and Barbara. The very relics of the Great Martyr Barbara are in the Vladimir Cathedral, which now belongs to the schismatics - the “Kyiv Patriarchate”, which fell away from the Ecumenical Orthodox Church. Therefore, those who want to pray to Saint Barbara and venerate her relics often come to the Florovsky Monastery.

We leave the Ascension Cathedral, bow to the grave of Bishop Theodore (Vlasov), ordained during the years of persecution, and, having drunk from the monastery spring, we walk towards the bell tower, rising above the holy gates of the monastery.

We have preserved some bells from ancient times,” Sister Svetlana tells me. - And recently new bells have appeared, which in their sound are surprisingly combined with the old ones, made of a very rare alloy. The ringing is even richer! Previously, a dove sat on the gilded cross of the bell tower - just like on the cross of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. In the Lavra they restored such a cross with a dove, but here, unfortunately, they do not.

Well, you do have a lot of live pigeons.

Yes, there are many alive. For some reason they always love the monastery, although it is not blessed to feed them on the territory. Otherwise everything here would be covered in pigeons... But this is our garden. I once heard how one girl was giving a tour of our monastery for small children - well, just kindergarten age. And she said that in monasteries they always cultivate a garden in memory of the lost paradise. She said it so well... Of course, our plants are absolutely amazing. For example, a small pear tree is growing, so thin, and wow, there are such pears on it! Many lay people come and say: we also plant such plants in our dachas, but they don’t grow like that here. Well, of course, this is due to the prayers of the mothers, and the place is so blessed... Now it’s not very visible, but we have our own magnolia. And another plant... rhododendron, in my opinion... This is a beautiful bush that we preserve from frost and wind. Some tropical plants grow here, the names of which are difficult to remember... And somehow they all get along with each other.
...
One of the most revered Kyiv saints, Elder Jonah, had this vision in his early childhood. Together with Saint John the Theologian he found himself in the heavenly monasteries. Near the temple of the Lord there grew many trees. “Some of them are blooming, some have fruits on them that are preparing for maturity, and others already have ripe fruits and are full of beauty and fragrance,” Father Jonah later wrote about this vision. “With their leaves they offer praise as if alive, emitting a sound, sending singing to the Lord God, who created everyone and everything and ordered everything wisely and intelligently."

And every monastery is like this garden, where every tree, every blade of grass, every soul constantly praises the Lord. We, hasty pilgrims, can only breathe in the local air deeply, and, leaving for the world, take with us the memory of the heavenly fragrance.

And then sigh about returning...

List of used literature

1. Memories of the nun Elena, resting in the tomb of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. Kyiv, 2003
2. Lives of the saints of the Orthodox Church. Comp. priest I. Bukharev. M., 1999
3. Monasteries. Encyclopedic reference book. M., 2001
4. Monasteries and churches of Kyiv. Directory guide. Kyiv, 2004
5. Venerable Seraphim of Sarov. Munich-Moscow, 1993
6. Legends about the Venerable Elder Jonah, the Wonderworker of Kiev. Kyiv, 2002

Address of the Holy Florovsky Ascension Convent: 04071, Kyiv, st. Florovskaya, 6/8. Phone: (10-38044) 416-01-81.

Directions in Kyiv: st. m. "Kontraktovaya Ploshchad".

Divine services are daily. The monastery does not switch to daylight saving time. Evening service at 16.30 (in summer at 17.30), Liturgy at 7.00 (in summer at 8.00), on Sundays and holidays - at 7.00 and 9.30 (in summer at 8.00 and 10.30 ). Confession is performed during the Liturgy.

Abbess - Abbess Antonia (Filkina)

There is a hospice house at the monastery. The head is nun Mariam (Byron).

Description

The Holy Florovsky Ascension Monastery is the most ancient convent in the city of Kyiv. The first documentary mention of the existence of the Florovsky Monastery is a letter of 1566 from Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland, written to the Kyiv prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky. But it existed even before the devastation of Kyiv by Mengli-Girey in 1482. The letter spoke of the transfer of ownership and management of the monastery at the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus to Archpriest Yakov Gulkevich and his descendants-clergymen, who were to conduct services there according to Greek custom and law, i.e. perform Orthodox services. In 1632, under St. Peter (Mogila), Metropolitan of Kiev, the grandson of Archpriest Yakov, John Bogush-Gulkevich, monk of the Lavra, renounced his hereditary rights to the Florovskaya monastery in favor of Abbess Agathia (Gumenitskaya), but on the obligatory condition that the monastery must belong to the Orthodox Church.

In 1711, by decree of Emperor Peter I, the Ascension Convent, founded at the beginning of the 17th century and located opposite the Holy Gates of the Lavra, was annexed to the Florovsky Monastery (now the former arsenal of the Kiev-Pechersk Fortress is located on this site). From this time on, the expansion of the Florovsky Monastery began. In 1718, the Monastery was overtaken by a severe fire, which destroyed almost all of its buildings, including the Church of Florus and Laurus. But the monastery was quickly restored, thanks to donations from parishioners; in 1732, the stone Ascension Church was erected and consecrated, which is currently one of the famous shrines and attractions of the city of Kyiv.

In 1811, the monastery was again subjected to a devastating fire; it completely destroyed Podol and the Florovsky Monastery. The fire was so strong that the bells melted. The state treasury allocated 133 thousand rubles for the restoration of the monastery, which made it possible to rebuild the Ascension and Refectory churches, and another new Church of the Resurrection of Christ was built with donations from parishioners. In 1821, a bell tower was built over the holy gates of the monastery, and in 1844 a stone church in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was consecrated. In 1835, the monastery was given ownership of Kiselevka, on which the Trinity Church was erected in 1857. The mountain itself was surrounded by a stone fence.
In 1870, at the monastery, at the monastery’s own expense, a school was opened for girls from poor families of different classes. At the end of the 19th century there was an almshouse and a hospital here. There were only 38 buildings, wooden and stone.
Nowadays the bell tower, the three-domed Ascension Church with a chapel in the name of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, the Church of St. Nicholas of Myra (until 1857 it was called the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus) and the one-domed rotunda church in the name of the Resurrection of Christ, the Temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.
The Florovsky Monastery has at all times been famous for its ascetics of piety. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. In it, women, most often belonging to the upper classes, were tonsured as nuns. Here Princess Ekaterina Miloslavskaya, Countess Apraksina, Princess Shakhovskaya and others labored as abbess.
A huge contribution to the history of the Russian Church was made by the abbess of the Florovsky Monastery Smaragda, who wrote the very famous book “Reverent Christian Reflections” in Russia.
In the Kiev Florovsky Monastery, the great Alexandra Melgunova, the founder of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery, took monastic vows.


The Florovsky Monastery amazes with its grandeur and beauty, both inside and outside. But external beauty is not the most important thing; what is most important is the spiritual atmosphere that reigns in every building of this monastery. This monastery carries divinity and devotion to Orthodoxy. When coming to Kyiv, you should definitely visit this place, even if you are not a believer.

This monastery may not be the most visible and famous in Kyiv, but it is almost the most indicative in terms of the harmonious functioning of an Orthodox monastery within a large city. Why Orthodox? Because, for example, in Lviv, there are many monasteries that harmoniously blend into the city panorama, but these are Catholic monasteries. But Orthodox monasteries always attract more attention and function on the principle of a city within a city. Like the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, or Sophia of Kyiv, or the Trinity-Ilyinsky Monastery in Chernigov. There are many such examples. I’m not saying that this is bad, I’m just drawing attention to the harmony of the urban environment and I want to note that in this harmony, monasteries should be noticeable and invisible at the same time. (There are also inconspicuous Orthodox monasteries, for example in Odessa, but this is an inflection in the other direction, when they simply merge with the urban environment).

Holy Ascension Florivsky Monastery

Monastir on the cob of the 20th century (you can see the pear-shaped baths of the Ascension Cathedral)

Ascension Cathedral (left hand) with sholomo-like baths (photo clickable)

There are many churches in Podil. There are also many monasteries (former and current). Ascension Florovsky Monastery is one of the oldest, largest and most interesting. It is an integral part of the landscape of Podol, although at the same time it is one of the most compact and most comfortable large monastery complexes in Ukraine (this is when more than one church and more than one building of cells are successfully located in a limited space). There is a large cathedral, a large bell tower, three auxiliary churches and large cell buildings. And all this operates in a limited space in a busy business part of the city, with constant traffic jams and hundreds (or thousands) of typical office workers.

It is unknown when the monastery in honor of Saints Florus and Laurus was founded in Kyiv. According to some historical documents, it already existed in 1441. Then it fell and was restored by the Kyiv archpriest Jacob Gulkevich, who received the lands of the monastery as lifelong property from the Polish king Sigismund II in 1566. The monastery was already a women's monastery. In 1632, Gulkevich's grandson renounced his rights to the monastery lands and transferred them to the subordination of Abbess Agafya Gumenitskaya. Since then, the monastery existed as a separate monastery, subordinate to the Kyiv Metropolis and the Ecumenical (Constantinople) Patriarchate. But after the annexation of Kyiv to Muscovy, the metropolis was almost by force resubordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate. We won’t talk further about subordination...

Church of Our Lady of Kazan

Refectory Church

Resurrection Church

At first, all the buildings of the monastery (which was very poor) were wooden, so they suffered greatly from frequent fires. Only at the end of the 17th century the first stone building appeared in the monastery - the abbess's house.

The heyday began in 1711, after Peter I closed the Ascension Convent (the oldest convent in Kyiv) and transferred the nuns to the Florovsky monastery. The city arsenal was subsequently built on the site of the Ascension Monastery.

The Ascension Monastery was considered the most elite convent in Kyiv. Most of the nuns here came from princely and gentry families. As the famous French engineer Boplan (who served the Polish crown for a long time) noted, the nuns (seen by the engineer on walks) have extremely beautiful faces.

Dzvinitsya

Monastery buildings (photos are clickable)

In 1683, after the appointment of Mary Magdalene Mazepa (Mokievskaya), the mother of the future hetman, as abbess of the Ascension Monastery, the monastery began to flourish. It became the main center of liturgical sewing, expanded and expanded. But Emperor Peter closed the “Mazepa” monastery. The stone churches and monastery buildings were subsequently dismantled, and the nuns were transferred to the Florovsky Monastery.

Numerous estates of Voznesensky were also transferred to the Florovsky monastery. From one of the poorest he became one of the richest. Since 1732, it began to be called the Holy Ascension Florovsky Monastery. This happened after the completion of the construction of the Holy Ascension Cathedral - the main church of the monastery.

The cathedral was built in the Ukrainian Baroque style. It is interesting that later in church circles this style was called “an archaistic form that corresponds to the folk building tradition.” It was restored several times after fires. So in 1811, a fire destroyed almost all the paintings in the temple. The restoration work was led by the chief architect of Kyiv, Andrey Melensky. On his initiative, the original pear-shaped domes of the cathedral, characteristic of the Ukrainian Baroque, were restored. But the Soviet “restorers”, after the destruction of the domes in 1941-43 (during the occupation), did not restore their shape, putting strange helmet-shaped endings on the drums. The cathedral then lost some of its beauty. But still, this is still one of the most majestic temples in Podol. The interior of the building is especially impressive (which I was not allowed to photograph - it is not blessed).

In 1759, the first stone building of the monastery (the abbess's house) was turned into a refectory church (now the Church of Our Lady of Tikhvin). A little earlier (in 1740), a three-tier bell tower was erected, with the top two tiers being wooden.

By the end of the 18th century, most of the buildings of the Florovsky Monastery remained wooden, so the terrible fire of 1811 destroyed them. How he destroyed the upper tiers of the bell tower. Under the leadership of Melensky, a major reconstruction of the monastery was carried out. New cell buildings were built. The bell tower was completed with two stone tiers in the Empire style (the bell tower had a high spire, distorted by Soviet restorers). In the same style, the Resurrection Church-rotunda was erected in 1824 (now considered one of the best empire-style buildings in Kyiv).

In 1840-44, the Church of Our Lady of Kazan was built. The author of the project is considered to be Pavel Sparro. The church is a mixture of classicism and historicism (the classicist building is complemented by elements of Russian-Byzantine architecture).

In 1929 the monastery was closed. The Trinity Church, which stood on the monastery cemetery, was destroyed, and the remaining buildings were distributed to various institutions. So, in the Church of Our Lady of Kazan, a workshop of a prosthetic factory was located, in the Ascension Cathedral and the Resurrection Church - workshops of “Ukrproektrestavratsiya”, in cell buildings - a housing cooperative... Well, etc.

During the German occupation, the monastery was reopened; in the future it was no longer closed (officially), although most of the buildings were returned to the nuns only in the 90s of the last century.

Now the monastery can be said to be thriving, even despite the continuation of restoration work in many buildings. This is a significant tourist site, included in most excursion programs in Podol. We recommend visiting this corner of comfort in the middle of a noisy city. You will not regret.

Text and photos by Roman Malenkov

The Kamenno-Brodsky and Gusevsky monasteries are easily accessible by car along paved roads that lead directly to the gates of the monasteries; buses pass several times a day.
In contrast, the Kremensky Ascension Monastery is a real desert. From the city of Frolovo to it in a straight line - thirty kilometers. An asphalt road leads to the Zimovsky farm, and then a dirt road leads to the camp sites of several Frolovsky enterprises; the road ends on the steep bank of the Don. The domes of the monastery church are visible across the Don on the left, downstream around the bend in the river. There are two chapels on the high hills above the monastery. The view of the monastery opens from the road at the entrance to Zimovsky. There is no crossing organized in this place; perhaps the monks are afraid of the invasion of undressed and drunk tourists from tourist centers. If you come to an agreement with the fishermen who own the boats, you can cross the Don here too, although from the camp sites of oil and gas workers it is a long swim - 2 kilometers. Directly opposite the monastery there is a camp site for railway workers; you can drive to it along dirt roads winding through floodplain thickets if the weather is dry. During spring floods, the Don rises all the way to the Zimovsky farm and forest roads become impassable for a long time - until mid-May. Having crossed by boat to the other side of the Don, you encounter an unexpected obstacle - an overgrown bay lies between the shore and the monastery. You have to cross it on another boat - a punt - or go far around it. In the summer, a bus from Frolovo reaches the camp sites several times a day; during the rest of the year, three times a week, a heavy rotation vehicle stops only in Zimovsky, and then goes north along sandy roads in the floodplain past the villages of Vyezdinsky and Chernopolyansky to Kletsko-Pochtovsky.

You can also get to the monastery by car along the circular route. If you are coming from Volgograd, then after passing Ilovlya, after 30 kilometers you need to turn left near the village of Log at the sign “Viltov”. From Frolovo you also need to drive (42 kilometers) to this turn. The asphalt road goes into the Don floodplain, past the Viltov farm to the crossing. The small boat “Veter” pushes a heavy ferry through the fast Don waters. The crossing of a passenger car costs 50-70 rubles, the crossing is open from 7 to 21 hours. Driving to the right bank of the Don, you find yourself in the village of Novogrigoryevskaya with the 18th century Holy Trinity Church in the center. Past the church, an asphalt road leaves the village to the north high above the Don to the Kamensky farm. Buses no longer go here. Above Kamensky rise the dumps of quarries, where crushed stone was mined and transported on barges along the Don. Now crushed stone is dug from time to time for local needs. The asphalt in Kamenskoye ends, behind the farm the path is blocked by a large ravine, which can be driven around along the upper road, which rises in a serpentine path along the ravine on the northern side of the quarry dumps. It is made of crushed stone, so you can drive on it even in wet weather. After five kilometers of this road there is a post with a sign “Kremensky Ascension Monastery”, and to the right along the forest belt a field road begins. After five kilometers it leads to a hill overlooking the monastery and to the Holy Well in a gully at the top of the hill. If the road seems unreliable (after rain), you can drive even further five kilometers and take the road that leads to the monastery from the village of Kremenskaya. This road overlooks the Don on the other side of the ravine next to the chapel over the graves of the seven brother monks, the founders of the monastery. From the top of the hill and the well there is a very steep descent to the monastery. The narrow white strip of chalk road is visible from the tourist centers and even in good weather from the Moscow highway. On the right there is a bypass road, strewn with chalk chips and washed out by rain, which you can still drive along. Regular buses do not go here, there are only a few courtyards in Kamensky, its residents work in a quarry, and the Kamensky farm ends in the Ilovlinsky district. The monastery itself is located in the Saushkin village of the Kremensky rural settlement of the Kletsky district, but it is difficult to get to all three surrounding regional centers - Kletskaya, Ilovlya and Frolovo. It is already practically uninhabited, only a few summer residents come here for the summer.

At the top of the hills in a gully there is a Holy Well, according to legend, which appeared through the prayers of the brothers of the monastery in 1788 on the feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Last year, the constantly crumbling slopes of the beam were equipped with the efforts of Frolov residents, and they also erected a new frame over the well. This year there was also a swimming pool.

The main attraction of the monastery is the Ascension Cathedral, built at the beginning of the 18th century in the style of the large five-domed cathedrals of central Russia. Three two-story buildings were built in the middle of the 19th century. They survived until the 70s of the 20th century, when they housed a psychiatric boarding house, then they were abandoned and began to collapse. The cathedral was used as a stable, workshop, and forge, for which large gates were broken. In place of the southern altar there was an anvil. Then the Don farms became depopulated, all production ceased, and the psychiatric boarding house also closed. Since the early 90s, parishioners from Frolovo went to clear the ruins of the monastery. In the Ascension Cathedral, which has already been covered with a roof and the domes restored, services are rarely performed; now the plaster on the walls of the altar is being restored there.

Of the three buildings, one is equipped, the brothers of the monastery live in it, and the house church is also built there. The main shrine of the monastery is the Augustov Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Life in a reviving monastery is hard - they heat it with wood, and carry water from the Don. The brothers cultivate a garden, fish, and have a cow and piglets. The abbot of the monastery, Abbot Rufin (Ivanov), bakes the bread himself.

A kilometer from the monastery, under a hill with the graves of seven brothers, is the St. John the Baptist monastery, where Hierodeacon George and monk Kirill live and pray. On July 7, 2007, on the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, a group of parishioners from the city of Frolovo, led by rector Archpriest Theodore Androshchuk, visited the monks to congratulate them on the patronal feast of the monastery and donate an icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The monks warmly received the pilgrims and, after the prayer service, fed them a meal. Over lunch, the monks talked about their life in the monastery. “We have unity with nature here, especially in winter, animals come - wolves, foxes, a lot of hares, there are roe deer,” says monk Kirill. “We have a vegetable garden on the shore of a pond near the Don, and turtles live in the pond next to it.” There are three wooden buildings in the monastery - Father George's cell, a refectory and a bathhouse. Above the stone cell of monk Cyril there is a tiny temple in the name of St. John the Baptist, in which two monks read the prayer rule.

Before the revolution, the banks of the Don were densely populated by Cossacks, there were villages with large churches and numerous farmsteads on the hills, and there was busy shipping along the river. Now the villages are dying out, churches stand without domes and often without services. There are no roads or railways along the Don, shipping along the shallow Don is unprofitable; people reach villages and regional centers from the Moscow highway and only where ferry crossings still operate. And the Kremensko-Voznesensky Monastery, once founded by the Cossacks near their villages, has now become a real desert, distant from the bustle of the modern world.