Makaryevskaya desert (Leningrad region)

The beginning of the monastery

It was founded in the middle of the 16th century by the Rev. Makari Roman , who was appointed here abbot by Metropolitan Makari of Novgorod. Then the first wooden church was built in the monastery in the name of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the death of the founder of the monastery, his body was buried on the north side of the temple. Soon, a second wooden church was built for donations in the name of the Monk Savvatiy of Solovetsky.

In 1611 and 1615, the monastery was devastated by Swedish troops led by Jacob Delagardi , the monks were killed, and the library burned down. Then the cloister was restored again. In addition to two churches, according to the inventory of 1628, the monastery had three monastic cells and small land estates.

The inhabitants lived in isolation, her abbots were never elected to state and church posts, they were not invited to spiritual-state meetings.

Monastery in the 18th-19th centuries

At the end of the first half of the 18th century, deserts gradually fell into decline again and were under the authority of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra . In 1761, the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was again built. And above the grave of the first abbot of the monastery, a chapel was built, consecrated in honor of St. Macarius. In the same year, on the island, where in the last years of his life the monk settled, a chapel was built.

In 1764, during the secularization reform carried out by Catherine II , the monastery was abolished, and the church became a parish with the appointment of a priest. Soon the church was assigned to the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Dobrom.

For many years, the deserts were forgotten. Cells were not preserved, divine services were performed only in the days of memory of St. Macarius at the request of the pilgrims. Only in 1840 a new one with the same name was built on the site of the dilapidated Assumption Church, and the chapel with a well on the island was renewed. A gilded crab with an ancient venerated image of the reverend was arranged above the burial place of Macarius. One elderly priest settled at the temple and performed divine services. But in 1850 the church was again forgotten, while in 1871 it was renovated at the expense of philanthropists. In addition, a small strange house was built nearby. However, the lack of proper supervision led to the rapid decay of the buildings: the roof of the temple leaked, the wind demolished crosses from the heads, the floor in the church was rotten, the monastery houses did not have stoves.

Missionary Monastery

In December 1893, the archbishop of Novgorod and Old Russian Theognost received a petition signed by several thousand people for a petition to the Holy Synod for the renewal of the Makarya Desert and its conversion to a missionary monastery. The application was granted. On October 17 (29), 1894, the opening ceremony of the “Resurrection Practical Missionary Monastery” took place, the renowned synodal missionary hieromonk Arseniy (Alekseev) was appointed rector. At the Lyuban station, a monastery courtyard was built, which was solemnly consecrated on August 5 (17), 1894 . A road was laid to the village of Verigovschina .

It was assumed that a new cathedral church would be erected, which would become a copy of the Jerusalem Cathedral , and the monastery itself would be built in accordance with the topography of Jerusalem . In addition, it was planned to repair the old Assumption Cathedral and arrange an interview hall. However, plans were disrupted by a fire that destroyed almost the entire monastery.

Soon after the fire, a new wooden one was built on the site of the burnt temple, and a new cancer appeared over the relics of the saint. There were many donors for the restoration of the monastery. Among them is the Jerusalem Patriarch Damian , who transferred the icon of the Resurrection of Christ to the monastery in 1900 . A bell tower, a fraternal building, a hotel, Riga, workshops, and a bakery were built. On the islet in the channel of the river Lezny a model of the holy Mount Athos was built . The chapel on the site of the last feats of the Monk Makarii was turned into a small church in honor of "ascetics and ascetics, who shone with the feat of veneration, remembered by the Holy Church on Saturday of Cheese Week." In 1902, there were 80 monks in the monastery.

The monastic life in the Makariya desert continued until February 1932 , when her brothers, led by the bishop Makarii (Vasiliev), were arrested and repressed.

Liquidation Period

In a closed monastery housed a craft school with a boarding school, then a state farm , and later - a branch of Svirlag .

During the Great Patriotic War, deserts appeared in the territory occupied by the Nazis. In 1942, during the unsuccessful attack of the Soviet troops on Lyuban , all the monastery buildings were destroyed.

Renaissance Monastery

After the fall of Soviet power, Orthodox pilgrims began to visit the abandoned monastery. In 2004, a young reader Dmitry Titov from the Nikolsky church of the village of Mgi, who spent several days in the desert, visited the desert. He expressed his intention to ask for the blessing of the hierarchy to settle here permanently. He managed to captivate with the idea of ​​restoring the desert to the abbot of the Tikhvin Assumption Monastery Euthymius (Shashorin) , who in 2005 he tonsured a new novice into a mantle named David, blessing him to revive the desert and establish a monastery monastery there. In 2006, Father David was ordained a hieromonk and approved as hermitor of the Makaryevsky desert. On May 23, 2014, Hieromonk David passed away and was buried to the right of the altar of the church under construction.

Until 2016, once a month, a group of pilgrims went to the wilderness, headed by Priest Sergiy Rysev, the Church of the Mother of God Icon of All Sorrows of Joy, of the city of Tosno, and a liturgy was served.

The revival of the monastery continues. Rector is Hierodeacon Makarios (Tyaglovsky).

• “Roman, who settled among the Luban swamps” , V. Baburkin, “Tosno Bulletin”, August 12, 2015, No. 55 (14833), p. 6
• “The Establishment of the Makaryevsky Monastery” , V. Baburkin, “Tosno Bulletin”, September 26, 2015, No. 68 (14846), p. four
• Tract Makaryevskaya Deserts
• REVIVAL OF THE MAKARIEV DESERT
• Report on the expedition to the Makaryevskaya Deserts