John the Baptist Convent (photo essay). St. John the Baptist Stauropegial Convent
Story
The history of the monastery tells about the ascetics of the monastery: St. blzh. schema-nun Martha, the holy fool for Christ's sake, and the recluse nun Dosithea (Princess Tarakanova). The spiritual elder Schema-nun Martha rested on March 1/14, 1638 and was buried in the ancient cathedral of the monastery. Nun Dosithea labored for 25 years in strict seclusion and reposed on February 4/17, 1810. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the monastery was devastated and abolished. The monastery was restored with the blessing of St. Filaret (Drozdova). In 1918, the monastery was turned into a concentration camp, and in 1927 it was finally closed.
In 1992, the monastery was transferred to the Church and assigned to the Church of St. equal to book Vladimir in Old Sadekh. On August 11, 2000, the monastery was reopened; in 2002, the monastery was headed by Abbess Athanasius (Grosheva) from.
Currently, part of the buildings and territory of the monastery is occupied by the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Temples
The main cathedral in honor of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist with the side chapels of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (1879, architect M.D. Bykovsky) restored in 2010.
Home church of St. Elizabeth the Wonderworker, Abbess of Constantinople (1879, restored April 28, 1995).
Chapel of St. Ionna the Baptist (1879, opened 1991).
Shrines
A particle of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord (in the altar), a miraculous icon of St. Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John with a particle of relics (mid-16th century), revered copy of the image of St. The Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John with a particle of relics and a miraculous hoop (in the monastery chapel), the venerated image of St. Elizabeth the Wonderworker, Abbess of Constantinople (19th century), revered myrrh-streaming icon of the Mother of God “Smolensk” (in the Elisabeth Church).
Particles of relics: St. ap. and the Evangelist Matthew (in the altar), St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop. World of Lycia, St. Basil the Great, St. Philareta (Drozdova), Metropolitan. Moskovsky, sschmch. Hilarion (Troitsky), Archbishop. Vereisky, St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), Archbishop. Simferopol, confessor (in the Elisabeth Church), martyr. and healer Panteleimon, vmts. Anastasia the Pattern Maker, St. Sergius, abbot of Radonezh, St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Pimen of Ugreshsky, St. Amphilochia of Pochaev (in the altar), St. Kuksha of Odessa (in the altar), St. Alexy, man of God, Venerable. Ambrose, Isaac, Moses, Anatoly, Nektarios, the Elders of Optina, St. wives of Diveyevo: Alexandra, Martha, Elena (in the altar), blessed Paraskeva, Pelagia, Mary, Christ for the sake of holy fools, Diveyevo.
In the very center of Moscow, not far from the Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod, on a high hill near Solyanki Street, the St. John the Baptist Convent is located.
On September 11 (August 29, O.S.), on the day of the Beheading of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John, one of the oldest Moscow monasteries celebrates its patronal holiday. Not in magnificent celebrations, but in strict fasting and intense prayer, the monastery of St. John the Baptist spends this day and with all the fullness of the Orthodox Church remembers in repentant prayer how the head of the Baptist of the Lord was served on a platter to people satiated with sin and feasting on the day of the birth of King Herod.
All life of the greatest prophet and “greater in those born of women,” and his death, as a feat of standing for the truth of God, shine for us today with heavenly beauty and unearthly greatness.
| Cathedral of John the Baptist |
Historical legends most often connect the founding of the monastery with the birth of the first Russian Tsar - John Vasilyevich IV. Ivan the Terrible was born on August 25 and celebrated his namesake on the day of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Proximity to the Kremlin and connections with the royal house determined the fate of the monastery, which, on the one hand, constantly received generous royal alms, but was often used as a place of imprisonment for persons of the royal family. Moscow fires and unrest devastated the monastery, but funds from the royal treasury were donated to restore it.
The first tsars from the Romanov dynasty visited the monastery especially often and generously gifted it. Mikhail Feodorovich's wife of many children, Tsarina Evdokia Lukyanovna, often visited here the blessed schema-nun Martha, the holy fool for Christ's sake, asking for her prayers for a safe outcome during childbirth.
Revered during her lifetime by the royal couple as a spiritual elder, Schema-nun Martha (+1/14 March 1638) was also revered as a saint after her death. A prayer book for the reigning House of Romanov, she is also known for her special assistance to women in labor who were imprisoned, and for her assistance in the restoration of shrines. In the 11th century, during the reconstruction of the cathedral, St. the relics of the blessed Martha and were laid in a new marble tomb with the blessing of St. Filaret (Drozdova). After the 1917 revolution, St. her relics have been lost. Blessed Martha was glorified in the Cathedral of Moscow Saints. The Orthodox Church commemorates her on March 1/14 and on the Sunday before August 26/September 8.Another ascetic of the Ivanovo Monastery, known for her clairvoyance, is a recluse nun Dosithea (+ 4/17 February 1810) was, according to legend, the daughter of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna from a secret morganatic but legal marriage with Count A.G. Razumovsky. Princess Augusta was brought up in the family of her aunt V.G. Daragan and received the colloquial name Tarakanova. By order of Catherine II, she was tonsured at the Ivanovo Monastery. She is known for her spiritual help and instructions to the Putilov brothers - future abbots: From the Arov Hermitage - Abbot Isaiah II and Optina Hermitage - St. Moses.
In 1812 the monastery was destroyed and was abolished. According to the will of the rich widow E.A. Makarova-Zubacheva and with the active participation of the saint Philareta , Metropolitan of Moscow, through the efforts of M.A. Mazurina it was completely rebuilt in 1860-1879. according to a single project by M.D. Bykovsky, who created a masterpiece of European architecture in the heart of Moscow. The completion of the construction work to restore the monastery was entrusted to the abbot of the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery, now glorified as a saint. Pimen (Myasnikov). The first abbess of the renewed monastery was Abbess Raphaila (Rovinskaya), transferred here from the Anosin Monastery, and the first nuns were the Anosin sisters. In the host of heavenly patrons of the monastery: St.Nicholas the Wonderworker , the chapel of which is located in the monastery cathedral, Rev.Elizabeth the Wonderworker , Abbess of Constantinople (5th century), in whose name the house church was consecrated in the monastery.
In 1918, the monastery was closed and turned into a concentration camp of the Cheka-NKVD. The Way of the Cross of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia became the fate of the last nuns and priests of the monastery. The monastery churches operated until 1926 - 1927. The last sisters who lived on the monastery farm near the Mark Savelovskaya railway station were arrested in 1931 and sent into exile. Some of them returned to their confessor and elder schema-archimandrite Hilarion (Udodov), who served in the village of Vinogradovo near Moscow. On July 4, 1938, near Moscow, at the Butovo training ground of the NKVD, the priest of the St. John the Baptist Convent Alexy (Skvortsov) was shot. In 2004 Hieromartyr Alexy was glorified in the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in the 20th century.
Each of us has experienced a headache at least once in our lives. For some it is pulsating, for others it is pressing from different sides, others complain of sharp “dagger” pains, and someone at the moment of an attack remembers a drill, hammer and other carpentry tools.
Even if the pain is unbearable, do not rush to swallow pills! According to doctors, medications are ineffective for the treatment of chronic headaches - at best, they only stop the attack. In addition, an overdose of analgesics can suppress the brain's protective centers and cause a “medicinal” headache. Suffering and illness can be greatly reduced through prayer and faith. According to ancient Russian custom, people pray to John the Baptist for healing from headaches.
Forerunner means previous
The Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John is revered by the Orthodox Church as the greatest saint after the Virgin Mary. His parents, the priest Zacharias and the righteous Elizabeth, lived to old age and had no children. One day, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the temple, who predicted the imminent birth of his son: “You will call him John. Even in his mother’s womb, he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, turn people to God and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah.” The archangel's prophecy came true, and in due time the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John was born.
Six months later, the Magi announced the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Jewish king Herod the Great ordered the death of all infants under two years of age. Elizabeth and her son had to leave their home and hide in the desert. Zechariah was soon killed by Herod's soldiers because he refused to name the place where the baby John and his mother were hiding. Righteous Elizabeth died when John was still a youth. Guarded by an angel, he grew up in the desert, which became his home - John spent most of his life in strict fasting, prayer and solitude.
When the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth turned thirty years old, the voice of God told him to leave his refuge for the sake of ministry - the time had come for the coming of the Messiah. On the crowded banks of the Jordan River, the Forerunner called on people to lead a righteous lifestyle: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” He rethought the ritual of ablution that existed in Judea, establishing repentant baptism in the Jordan. John preached that this was only a preparation for the meeting with the Messiah, who would take upon himself all the sins of the world. And then one day Jesus came from Galilee to receive baptism from John along with everyone else. By the Holy Spirit, John realized that the Messiah was before him, and called Him the true Son of God and the Savior of the world.
The short earthly ministry of John the Baptist was interrupted by the martyrdom of the prophet. A zealot of truth and piety, he denounced sinners, regardless of title and dignity. “You should not have your brother’s wife,” - this is how the holy righteous man publicly condemned the ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, for illegally cohabiting with Herodias, the wife of his brother. Fair words aroused fierce hatred on the part of Herodias, who planned to destroy the prophet at any cost. And so it happened: by order of Herod, John was thrown into prison and executed, and his head was brought on a platter to the cruel Herodias.
The severed head of the prophet was buried on the Mount of Olives, and his body was buried in the city of Sebastia. The subsequent miraculous discovery of the long-suffering head of John the Baptist gave believers hope for urgent help from this saint with a headache.
A story like a fairy tale
It is impossible to count all those who, after praying before the image of the holy prophet John the Baptist, no longer suffered from headaches. This is how 70-year-old pensioner from Moscow Nadezhda Petrovna Kuznetsova talks about her miraculous healing.
“Several years ago I started having severe attacks of headaches. At first the pain came twice a month. These days I was completely incapacitated. The attacks were so strong and painful that my vision darkened and my legs gave way. I barely made it home, where I lay motionless in the dark until the pain went away. Then the attacks became more frequent and began to repeat several times a week. Each new morning passed in painful anticipation: will the pain return today? All kinds of examinations showed nothing, and the doctors shrugged: “Apparently, this is old age, the characteristics of the body. Take your pills, avoid stress, and maybe everything will return to normal.” A huge number of medications only temporarily relieved the pain, without saving me from these terrible attacks. My life turned into a nightmare, and there was only one thing left to do - humble myself and pray to God. I have always been a believer, I tried to live according to the commandments of Christ, helped my neighbors as best I could, and went to church. But I never asked for myself - more and more for my family and friends. The moment came when I myself needed help. I learned that there is a monastery in Moscow where the miraculous image of John the Baptist with a hoop is located. This icon has the power to heal headaches. To many, my story will probably seem like a hoax and falsification, but all my words are true. After I visited the St. John the Baptist Convent and said a prayer under the hoop, everything went away. The headaches... disappeared forever. For a whole year now I have been living a normal, full life.
John the Baptist's Hoop
...They say that fresh air and movement are the main enemies of headaches. Having decided to take a walk to the St. John the Baptist Convent, I declared real war on my migraine. On the calendar there is Sunday (not just Sunday, but Palm Sunday), on the faces of passers-by there is anticipation of the holiday (there is only a week left until Easter), the smell of spring is in the air. The road from home to Kitay-Gorod took about an hour: Old Arbat, Vozdvizhenka, Alexander Garden, Red Square, Solyanka - and here in front of me is St. John the Baptist, or simply Ivanov, monastery. Its main shrine is an ancient miraculous icon with a particle of the relics of John the Baptist, capable of healing diseases of the head.
St. John the Baptist Monastery has been known since the beginning of the 16th century. The monastery was founded in the early years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who revered John the Baptist as his heavenly patron. The proximity to the Kremlin made the monastery popular among the Moscow nobility - people came here for prayer help, family burials were held here, and in the 17th century it became a place of tonsure for disgraced women of the royal family. The monastery suffered more than once from fires and destruction, but was always restored. After the October events, the atheistic authorities closed the Ivanov Monastery, and only in 1992 it was returned to the Church, and ten years later the convent was restored.
...Going through my memory useful information from the Ivanov Monastery website, I enter the chapel of John the Baptist. Here the invisible presence of the holy righteous man is felt - his icon dominates the surrounding space in all its grandeur and beauty. Below, under the glass, the image is decorated with many jewelry strung on a ribbon - these gold chains, crosses, earrings and bracelets are brought by believers in gratitude for the healing. Attached to the icon is a hoop with the inscription: “Holy Great Forerunner and Baptist of the Savior John, pray to God for us.” There are not many people in the chapel, but while I quietly pray in front of the icon of the prophet, wearing a metal shrine on my head, a small queue forms behind me. Truly, a holy place is never empty, and for some reason I don’t want to leave here for a long time...
And only on the street I realize that my head no longer hurts. God bless!
Figures and facts
According to the World Health Organization, human health depends only 10% on medicine, another 15% on genetics (heredity), and everything else depends on the person himself. Long-term research by American scientists from the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) has proven that believers live on average 14 years longer than atheists.
Prayer to John the Baptist for relief from headaches
How we will honor your honorable beheading, Saint John, with what tears we will cry, what songs we will sing, the mind does not comprehend and the tongue is exhausted! The lawless Herod cut off your all-holy head, John the Forerunner of the Lord, on earth; God Almighty in heaven crowned you with immortality and gave you His Kingdom. You are great before God and you can ask a lot from Him. Therefore, falling down, we pray to you, Baptist of Christ: hear those suffering from headaches, ease and calm their illness and quench their sorrow, freeing them from pain and healing them, so that they may glorify God about you forever and ever. Amen.
In the pilgrim's notebook:
John the Baptist Convent
Address: Moscow, Maly Ivanovsky lane, 2
Directions: metro station "Kitay-gorod" (exit to Solyanka street), then 5 minutes on foot.
The Chapel of St. John the Baptist and the Cathedral are open daily from 8.00 to 20.00.
Irina Lazareva,
On September 11 (August 29, O.S.), on the day of the Beheading of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John, one of the oldest Moscow monasteries - the recently revived St. John the Baptist Convent - celebrates its patronal feast day. The monastery of St. John the Baptist spends this day not in magnificent celebrations, but in strict fasting, and with all the fullness of the Orthodox Church remembers in repentant prayer how the head of the Baptist of the Lord was served on a platter to people fed up with sin and food on the day of the birth of King Herod. The whole life of the greatest Prophet and “the greatest among those born of women,” and his death, as a feat of standing for the truth of God, shine on this day with heavenly beauty and unearthly greatness. On the day of the murder of the great Righteous One, we involuntarily recall other innocent sufferers who bore their cross under the protection of St. John the Baptist, within the walls of his monastery: the slaves of the royal family who were forcibly imprisoned here in the 16th–18th centuries, and the host of new martyrs who endured bonds and imprisonment for Christ. victims in the twentieth century, when the monastery, like many shrines of Russian Orthodoxy, was desecrated and turned into a concentration camp, the nuns of the monastery were expelled and sent into exile, and its priests were shot or died in camps.
On August 11, 2000, at a meeting of the Holy Synod, held on the eve of the Anniversary Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, chaired by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', it was decided to open the St. John the Baptist Convent, located in the very heart of the capital. Proximity to the Kremlin and connections with the royal house have always determined the fate of the monastery from the moment of its foundation and throughout the centuries. Many mysterious and tragic pages are written in the history of the Ivanovo, as it was formerly called, the Maiden’s Convent. Together with all the people, the monastery suffered devastation from the interventionists and their “thieves and worthless people”; it often burned in Moscow fires, but each time it was restored by the generous hand of the Russian tsars and the prayers of its patron saints. Much in the history of the St. John the Baptist Convent echoes the fate of the destroyed Kremlin shrines: the Ascension Maiden and Chudov Monasteries. By the providence of God, the monastery of St. John the Baptist was saved from complete destruction for the spiritual renewal of the capital, the “voice of one crying in the wilderness” again sounds in the heart of Moscow, and the joy of the revival of the monastery at the end of the twentieth century was combined with the pan-church celebration of the glorification of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
The ancient St. John the Baptist Monastery is located on a high hill that goes around Solyanka - the ancient route to Vladimir and Ryazan. Since ancient times, this area belonged to the grand-ducal house; on this land there was a suburban princely courtyard and gardens, from which the name of the temples and monasteries founded here - “in the Old Gardens” - was fixed. The Ivanovo monastery was founded as a monastery. Built on the sovereign's land, it received the royal ruga - maintenance from the royal house that owned the land. Tradition connects the founding of a maiden monastery in the White City near Solyanka with the birth of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich IV the Terrible. The founding of the monastery is attributed to both the Terrible Autocrat himself and his mother, Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya. The first Russian Tsar, who was crowned the Russian Tsar in 1547, was born on the eve of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist on August 25, 1530 and bore the name of the Baptist of the Lord. The Monastery of St. John the Baptist became a place of prayer for the repose of the Terrible Emperor, as its royal founder.
The founders of the Romanov dynasty - Tsars Mikhail Feodorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich - especially often visited and generously gifted the Ivanovo monastery in the 17th century. Mikhail Feodorovich's wife of many children, Tsarina Evdokia Lukyanovna, née Streshneva, often visited the blessed schema-nun Martha, the holy fool for Christ's sake, who lived here, and asked her prayers for a safe outcome during childbirth. The example of the pious queen was followed by her subjects. A centuries-old custom, sanctified by the prayers of the holy fool Martha, was established to serve a memorial service for the repose of her soul during pregnancy at the tomb of the blessed one in the Ivanovo Monastery, thereby asking for her prayerful help. Revered for her holiness during her lifetime, Blessed Martha was buried in the monastery Cathedral. Her memory was sacredly revered by the royal couple even after the blessed death that followed on the day of the Angel of Queen Eudokia on March 1, 1638. The quiet and invisible prayer of the humble schema-nice, who asked God's mercy for the young king, his wife and children, contributed to the consolidation of the throne of the new dynasty and the establishment The Russian state, which has recently experienced severe turmoil. The restoration of historical memory and prayer for the repose of the Russian sovereigns will undoubtedly attract the grace of God in strengthening the Russian state, in the reconstruction of Russian shrines, and will become a worthy fruit of the repentance of the Russian people.
At the beginning of the 17th century, during the Time of Troubles, the Ivanovo monastery was plundered by Polish invaders, but by the grace of God and the zeal of the pious Russian tsars it was soon restored. In the first half of the 18th century, the monastery was devastated by two Moscow fires: the Trinity fire of 1737 and the fire of 1748, but in 1761 the monastery was restored by the generosity of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who intended it “for the care of widows and orphans of honored people.” The pious and religious empress, who bore the name of the mother of St. John the Baptist - righteous Elizabeth, had the intention in her declining years to become a monk according to the custom of her ancestors. For this purpose, she founded and created the Resurrection Smolny Novodevichy Convent in St. Petersburg, where she planned to retire. The Empress did not fulfill her intention, but the monastic path was prepared by the Lord for her own daughter in the Moscow Ivanovo monastery, which she herself appointed for the orphans of honored people.
In the Ivanovo Monastery, among the well-born nuns there were disgraced persons from the royal family; later women who persisted in heresy or committed serious crimes were sent to the monastery to repent. Thus, in the 16th century, in the monastery of St. John the Baptist, the wife of the eldest son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Tsarevich Ivan, was tonsured into the monasticism of Paraskeva; at the beginning of the 17th century, during the Time of Troubles, the wife of Tsar Vasily Shuisky was imprisoned and tonsured in the monastery with the name Elena. Another mysterious recluse was kept in the monastery at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries. This mysterious slave was, according to legend, the natural daughter of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna from a secret morganatic marriage with Count Alexei Grigorievich Razumovsky - the famous princess Augusta Tarakanova. By order of Catherine II in 1785, the real daughter of Elizabeth Petrovna was brought from abroad, presented to the empress and “for the good of Russia” she was tonsured a monk with the name Dosithea in the Moscow Ivanovo Monastery. The royal nun was kept in strict seclusion for about 25 years. She turned her involuntary retreat into the salvation of her soul and the souls of those neighbors who came to her with faith for help, because... After the death of Catherine II, people began to be allowed to visit Elder Dosithea. Then the gifts of prayer and insight were revealed to the world, which the Lord generously endowed on the humble nun, who accepted her cross from the hand of God. She helped many on the path of salvation. In the middle of the 19th century, the rector of Optina Pustyn, Schema-Archimandrite Moses (Putilov), now glorified in the host of the Optina Elders, testified to her prayerful help. She showed him, as well as his brother, the future abbot of the Sarov Hermitage, Abbot Isaiah II (Putilov), the monastic path and supported them in their youth with prayer and good advice. The nun Dosifeya rested in the Lord on February 4, 1810 and was buried in the Novospassky Monastery, the family tomb of the Romanov boyars.
After the destruction of Moscow by the French army led by Napoleon in 1812, the Ivanovo monastery was abolished for more than half a century. At the monastery church, four old women lived out their lives, who often saw a schema-montress praying with raised hands in the church at night. They believed that this was Blessed Martha of Ivanovskaya, and that through her prayers the monastery would certainly be restored.
In 1859, the beginning of the revival of the monastery was laid according to the will of the wealthy widow Elizaveta Alekseevna Makarova-Zubacheva. Together with her relative Maria Alexandrovna Mazurina, she turned to Moscow Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov). As a true archpastor, monk and patron of monasticism, St. Filaret was glad to have the opportunity to revive the monastery, for which he himself had drawn up the rules of the hostel. In the summer of 1859, Emperor Alexander II personally approved the project for the restoration of the monastery. In 1860, after the Divine Liturgy in the Church of St. equal to Prince Vladimir, located next to the monastery, and a religious procession from the Prince Vladimir Church to the monastery with the personal participation of St. Philaret laid the foundation for a new monastery Cathedral and the hospital church of St. Elizabeth the Wonderworker, the heavenly patroness of E.A. Makarova-Zubacheva. The monastery was rebuilt over the course of 20 years by the monastery builder M.A. Mazurina under the archpastoral care of St. Filaret based on a single project by academician Mikhail Bykovsky, who created an architectural masterpiece with elements of classicism, Romanesque and gothic styles in the center of old Moscow. The cathedral is reminiscent of a masterpiece of Western European architecture - the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Neither the builder of the monastery nor Metropolitan Philaret lived to see the opening of the monastery.
The solemn consecration of the St. John the Baptist Monastery took place in October 1879. The dean of the cenobitic monasteries, Reverend Pimen (Myasnikov), was entrusted with completing the construction work and finding an abbess for the new monastery. It was supposed to renew the Ivanovo Monastery as a dormitory, but in Moscow there were none, only full-time ones, so the monastery was entrusted to the care of the Archimandrite of the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery. The first abbess, Abbess Raphaila, and her sisters, Fr. Pimen found in the Anosina Boriso-Gleb Hermitage near Moscow, which at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries was popularly called “Women's Optina” because in it, as in the Optina Hermitage itself, eldership was developed. The Ivanovo monastery quickly filled with nuns and began to attract pilgrims from all over the Russian Empire.
In the 1890s. near the Mark station of the Savelovskaya railway, the Ivanovo monastery was provided with land for a farmstead, which received the name Chernetsovo. Under the abbess, Abbess Sergius (Smirnova), in 1893-95, a wooden church was built on the farm in honor of her heavenly patron, St. Sergius of Radonezh. The farm church of the monastery was well decorated, decorated with an oak iconostasis, and had particles of the holy relics of John the Baptist and Sergius of Radonezh.
By 1917, over three hundred nuns lived in the monastery. With the beginning of the 1st World War, all of them, in addition to the usual monastic obediences, sewed linen for the Russian army. Already in 1918, the Ivanovo monastery was closed and turned into a concentration camp - “Ivanovsky Ispravdom on Solyanka”, where in the 20s there were up to four hundred prisoners at a time. The Cathedral of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist and the Elizabethan Church continued to operate as parish churches; about a hundred nuns lived with them. During these years, Mother Superior and the nuns of the ruined monastery turned to Elder Father Alexy Mechev for prayerful help and spiritual advice on Maroseyka. In 1926 the churches were taken away. Monastery Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was chosen for its repository by the Provincial Archive Bureau, and the Elizabethan Church was placed at the disposal of the camp authorities.
Not only holy monasteries, temples of God, righteous people, but also the holy relics of God's saints endured desecration and persecution during godless hard times. For about three hundred years, the relics of the holy blessed schema-nun Martha, the holy fool for Christ's sake, the prayer book and patroness of the reigning Romanov dynasty, rested in the Ivanovo monastery. In the middle of the 19th century, with the blessing of St. Philaret of Moscow, the blessed relics were found during the reconstruction of the Cathedral and placed in a new marble tomb. Due to the closure of the Cathedral in 1926, the relics of St. Blessed Martha were opened and reburied; at present, their location remains unknown. Her memory is celebrated in the monastery on the day of her repose, March 1/14, and in the Cathedral of Moscow Saints on the Sunday before August 26/September 8.
After the final closure, the priests and the last sisters with the mother abbess were expelled from the monastery. The fate of Priest Alexy Skvortsov, who was formerly a deacon in the monastery, is known. Father Alexy was arrested twice. By the verdict of the troika at the USSR NKVD in the Moscow region on June 7, 1938, he was convicted and sentenced to capital punishment - execution "for counter-revolutionary agitation." He pleaded not guilty. Martyr's Crown of Fr. Alexy received him at the Butovo training ground on July 4, 1938. His documents are currently in the Canonization Commission. Another priest of the monastery, Archpriest Joseph Budilovich, who was a regimental priest until 1918, according to some sources, died in the camp.
The last abbess, Mother Epiphania (in the world - Elizaveta Dmitrievna Mityushina, a widow from the merchant class), who survived the destruction of the monastery, where she took monastic vows, moved with the remaining sisters to the farm. Here, to the temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh, was invited to serve Father Hilarion (Udodov), who became the confessor of the Ivanovo sisters. The name of this holy elder became widely known due to the fact that by the Providence of God he became the guardian of the head of St. Sergius of Radonezh during the Great Patriotic War. Father Hilarion began his monastic journey on Mount Athos at the St. Panteleimon Monastery on the special instructions of the Mother of God. In one of the investigative cases in connection with the arrest of his brother Peter, Fr. Hilarion is listed as “archimandrite of the Ivanovo monastery,” and so he remained an elder and caretaker of the Ivanovo exiles throughout all the years of persecution. In 1929, Father Hilarion buried Mother Epiphania on the farm. The Soviet government suppressed farm farming with taxes. In 1931, the sisters were arrested at the monastery farm and deported to Kazakhstan. Father Hilarion lived at the church of St. Sergius alone on the former farm for some time, then was invited as dean to serve in Vinogradovo, where he was rector of the Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God until the day of his death on March 15, 1951. Before the war, in the late 30s, Fr. Hilarion transferred the iconostasis and the shrines of the farm church of St. Sergius and built a chapel in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, thereby preparing a place for storage great shrine. Father Hilarion was for some time the fraternal confessor of the newly opened Trinity-Sergius Lavra, but soon returned to Vinogradovo. Here to Fr. After exile, the “Ivanovo orphans” gathered for Hilarion; a small “monastery” was formed here: some sisters visited, others served at the church, some of them were buried here.
From Vinogradovo, where the last Ivanovo nuns and their confessor and elder Fr. Hilarion, a new revival of the monastery began at the end of the twentieth century. In 1992, the St. John the Baptist Monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II, the monastery was assigned to the Church of St. equal to Prince Vladimir, headed by the rector, Rev. Sergius Romanov. The temple is located on Ivanovskaya Hill just above the monastery. It is providential that at the end of the 1980s Fr. Sergius Romanov served in the village of Vinogradovo in the Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, where the parish community of the Church of St. was born and formed from his spiritual children, including the future nuns of the monastery. Prince Vladimir.
From this time until the beginning of 2002, the community of the Church of St. equal to Prince Vladimir, with the participation of the Moscow Charitable Brotherhood of St. Vladimir, worked not only on the reconstruction of monastery churches, cells and walls, but also laid the foundation for the revival of monastic life in this ancient monastery. Since 1992 a community of sisters lived in the former hospital building; the monastery chapel of St. John the Baptist, where prayer services were served to St. To the Prophet. The former hospital building with the house church of St. Petersburg was completely restored. Elizabeth the Wonderworker. The consecration and first service in the Elizabethan Church took place in 1995 on Bright Week on the day of the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Life-Giving Spring.” At this Easter time, as a manifestation of the prayerful covering of the Mother of God, the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Hodegetria”, located in the church of St. Elizabeth the Wonderworker. In the summer of 2001, on the occasion of the Nativity of John the Baptist, the Archives of the Moscow Region completely liberated the monastery Cathedral; since October 2001, prayer services to St. John the Baptist.
The nuns of the St. John the Baptist Monastery developed especially close relations with the Pukhtitsa Monastery in Estonia, which preserved the traditions of Russian Orthodox cenobitic monasticism. At the invitation of Mother Varvara, the Ivanovo sisters went to Pyukhtitsy to study and get a closer look at monastic life. By the providence of God, according to the Decree of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', in January 2002, the St. John the Baptist Convent was headed by the abbess, nun Afanasia (Grosheva), appointed specifically from the Holy Dormition Pyukhtitsa stauropegial convent. The appointment of Mother Afanasia was received by the sisters with great joy.
With the arrival of the abbess, the monastery was transformed both internally and externally. It was replenished with new nuns and found its own parishioners.
On September 8, 2002, the Kazan chapel of the monastery cathedral was solemnly consecrated, in which a unique painting was recreated. The crosses on the renovated dome and turrets of the cathedral began to shine, and the monastery belfry announced the beginning of the service every day. 76 years after the closure of the monastery cathedral, consecrated in honor of the Beheading of St. The Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John, in him prayer is again offered, the Liturgy is performed, and the Bloodless Sacrifice is offered.
The first tonsure of the sisters was a joyful event for the monastery. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', during Great Lent 2003, on the day when a particle of the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Bishop Arseny, Archbishop of Istra, performed monastic tonsure for the sisters who stood at the origins of the revival of the monastery.
Immediately upon the arrival of Mother Athanasia on January 19, 2002, its main shrines were returned to the monastery - the icon of St. John the Baptist with a hoop, etc. Elizabeth the Wonderworker - holy abbess who lived in Constantinople in the 5th century. Icon of St. John the Baptist with a hoop is unique. The Russian tsars prayed in front of this image and followed it in a religious procession. During the Soviet period, the icon was kept in the Church of St. App. Peter and Paul on the Yauza. Nowadays it is located in the monastery chapel, open every day to pilgrims. To the icon case of St. The prophet on the right is attached to a metal chain with a copper hoop. On it is a half-erased but distinguishable inscription: “Holy Great Forerunner and Baptist of the Savior John, pray to God for us.” This hoop, worn with faith and prayer to St. John the Baptist on the head of pilgrims, known since the second half of the 19th century. Perhaps the hoop was made as evidence of a miraculous healing. Many miracles and healings were revealed by the grace of God at this image through the prayers of the Preacher of Repentance already in our time after the return of the shrine to the monastery. It is no coincidence that the flow of pilgrims suffering from mental and physical ailments to the monastery chapel does not dry up.
Such an ancient and again young monastery has many problems and sorrows. The main territory with cell buildings, where since 1918 there was a concentration camp of the Cheka-NKVD, then the NKVD Higher School, is still occupied by the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Another problem is the lack of funds for the restoration and restoration of this architectural monument XVIII–XIX centuries Of course, the monastery needs both generous benefactors and those who want to work for its revival. The monastery will welcome those who share family memories of the history of the monastery, documents, photographs and everything that comes under the protection of the Preacher of Repentance.
Ioanno-Pretechensky Monastery is located at the address: Moscow, st. m. Kitay-Gorod, Maly Ivanovsky Lane, 2, t. 924-0150.
On Mondays at 17.00 a prayer service to St. John the Baptist with an akathist and blessing of water, except on the eves of major holidays. The Chapel of John the Baptist and the Cathedral are open daily from 8.00 to 20.00.
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