Tikhvin Monastery (Tsivilsk)

Construction of the Ascension Church and the creation of a monastery

Initially, no later than 1675 (approximately 1671–1675), a wooden Tikhvin church (according to other sources, the Ascension Church, with a chapel in honor of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God) and a cell was erected outside the city, between the rivers Bolshoi and Maly Tsivil . Its appearance is connected with the “miraculous salvation” of Tsivilsk from the troops of Stepan Razin and the Chuvash peasants who joined them. Such a legend is known:

In October 1671, the Cossacks of Stepan Razin, together with the Chuvash outraged by them, approached the walls of Tsivilsk.
The attempt to take the fortress city by storm failed, and the "robbers" decided to capture it with starvation. Meanwhile, when the life supplies and gunpowder in the city were exhausted, and the forces of the defenders of the fortress were running out, helpless residents wanted to leave the city and flee 40 miles to neighboring Cheboksary .

But their hesitation was reassured by the fact that the pious resident of the city, Juliana Vasilyeva, was granted a vision from the Image of the Mother of God of Tikhvin. I heard the servant of God say the Queen of Heaven: “So that the people sitting in the city could sit tight: the Cossacks would not take the city, and when the city was saved, the inhabitants would build a monastery outside the city near the Streletsky meadow, between the rivers Big and Small Civil ...”.

At the place indicated by the Virgin, Sagittarius Stefan Ryazanov built a wooden church in the name of the Ascension of the Lord according to his personal vow and set up cells for monks. One of the chapels of the Ascension Church was dedicated to the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Tikhvin, the patroness of the city.

- History of the monastery ^[1]

The historian V. D. Dimitriev in the book "Chuvash historical traditions" notes ^[2] :

The intensity of class contradictions resulted in the Peasant War of 1670-1671 . <...> In the spring of 1670, Razin with his rebel army captured Tsaritsyn (now the city of Volgograd), Astrakhan. In late July, he stepped up the Volga. <...> At the end of August, the differences approached Simbirsk (now the city of Ulyanovsk), occupied the prison, where the village was located, but failed to take control of the strongly fortified fortress. <...>

As early as the beginning of September, Chuvash and Russian rebels besieged Tsivilsk and made several attacks to occupy it. To suppress the Razinians who besieged Tsivilsk, the tsarist army commanded from Kazan under the command of D. Baryatinsky. Along the way, he had to endure three battles with detachments of the Chuvash rebels. October 23 Baryatinsky managed to free Tsivilsk from the siege. However, after the departure of the troops of Baryatinsky, the city was again besieged by the Razinets. Only at the end of 1670 the troops of D. Baryatinsky and M. Kravkov drove the Razinets away from Tsivilsk.

In 1675, a copy was written for the wooden Ascension Church, known as the miraculous Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, which was stored in the Trinity Cathedral of Tsivilsk. She was also considered miraculous and, at the request of believers, she was carried around the cities and villages of the Kazan province (including Cheboksary, Yadrin ).

Ascension Tikhvin Monastery

Later, according to the name of the icon, the Ascension Monastery became Tikhvin (in the first half of the 18th and early 19th centuries the double name was used: the Ascension Tikhvin Monastery).
In the years 1723-24, with the unification of the low-peaked monasteries, his monks were transferred to the Gerontiev Deserts, a nunnery existed at this place for a short time, and from 1737 the Tikhvin (Ascension) nunnery was again mentioned. In the first half of the 18th century in the monastery there was a stone Ascension Church, 5 wooden cells, 3 barns , 2 cellars , a bakery , behind a wooden fence - a farmyard with outbuildings. The state consisted of hegumen , 2 hieromonks , schema monk ; clergy - from the deacon , clerk and sexton . The monastery owned 9 acres of arable land and 150 acres of hayfields, received income from the inn and the sale of candles.

In 1764, transferred to its own maintenance with a staff of 7 monks (hegumen, 3 hieromonk, hierodeacon , 2 monks).

At the end of the city’s population, a masculine stone monastery, known as Tikhvin. Built by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich , given in 7183/1675 / year. For construction, dependency is used from the supporters of the nobles and from the society of Tsyvil citizens. This monastery is not the number in the state. He is a builder, monks 6. Impregnation from alms.

- Description of the county town of Tsyvilsk (1785) ^[3]

In 1766 he received permission to own the former lands. At the monastery there was a cemetery , where since the beginning of the 19th century. buried the noble and wealthy people. At the end of the 18-1st half of the 19th centuries. of the new real estate mentioned: a two-story stone house of the abbot , a two-story semi-stone cell building, 3 chapels , a house for clergy in Tsivilsk, etc. The monastery owned 40 acres of arable land and 58 acres of hayfields in Tsivilsky uyezd , the Opozolino wasteland in Cheboksary uyezd with shrubs and fish fishing (71 tithes), fishing in the Chekursky backwater on the Volga and others. These lands, as well as the guesthouse , transported through the Volga and a water mill in Sviyazhsky district were leased; from the treasury, the monastery received “merciful alms” of 300 rubles.

By the end of the 1860s. the monastery fell into decay: the buildings were dilapidated, the hegumen, 2 hieromonk, hierodeacon, 8 novices remained from the brethren. To maintain the economy, the last abbot was forced to sell tea and shag in violation of the law in order to attract Chuvash pilgrims.

In 1868, the archbishop of Kazan, Anthony, after visiting the monastery suggested that the consistory close it, and the monks and property should be transferred to the Kozmodemyanskiy Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk monastery . However, the townspeople came out in defense of the monastery; in 1870, by decree of the Synod of December 30, it was transformed into the Tikhvin Mother of God Convent ^[4] .

Tikhvin Bogoroditsky Convent

The Tikhvin Bogoroditsky Nunnery was built at its own expense and donations from merchants Vasily Nikitich Nikitin ( Kazan ) ^[5] , Vasily Mikhailovich Maltsev (Moscow), Prokopiy Efremovich Efremov (Cheboksary) and others ^[6] .

In the early years, the Ascension Church, a house for the abbess and nuns were repaired, wooden buildings for a women's school with a shelter, a hospital, a refectory with a kitchen and laundry were built, behind the monastery there was a residential house for the clergy and a farmyard.

In 1880, the wooden church of St. Charalampia was transported from the village of Abashevo , in 1880-86, a stone three-altered Tikhvin church was built on the site of the dismantled Ascension Church. There was an elementary school at the monastery (in 1872–97 and 1915–18 the Brotherhood of St. Guria; in 1897–1911 a parish church ), intended primarily for Chuvash girls, an almshouse , and since 1916 - an orphanage for girls with a workshop (in 1918 the shelter totaled 23 people).

At the beginning of the 20th century the monastery had 74 acres of arable land, 61 acres of hayfields, 149 acres of forest in Tsivilsky Uyezd, fishing grounds in the wasteland of Opozino Cheboksary Uyezd (71 tithes), where a monastery , a mill in Sviyazhsky Uyezd, 2 wooden houses with outbuildings for clergy in Tsivilsk, were built, 2 tenement houses in Kazan, bequeathed by spouses Vasily Nikitich and Mari Ivanovna Nikitins (Nikitinsky Compound).

Icon-painting and gold-sewing workshops, renting transportation across the Volga, etc. brought considerable income.

After the February Revolution of 1917, its lands were seized and devastated by peasants, in 1918 partially nationalized .

In 1919, the monastery owned 38 acres of arable land and 56 acres of hayfields in Tsivilsk district, a wooden house in the city; its staff consisted of the abbess, 25 nuns, 214 novices, clergy - of 2 priests and 2 psalm-goers .

In the early 1920s the cloister housed apartments for Soviet employees, an orphanage , infant homes and old age. Then, on the basis of the monastery’s grounds, a breeding farm for cattle was created.

In December 1923, a monastery religious group was registered.

In July 1925 the monastery was closed.

In Soviet times, the five-tier bell tower was dismantled into brick; in the Tikhvin Cathedral, rebuilt into a three-story building, there was an orphanage , a hospital , a pedagogical and sewing school.

In 1997, the buildings were returned to believers, the monastery was reopened by decree of the Synod of February 26, 1998 ^[7] .

Cathedral of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God

Object of cultural heritage ( No. 2110030004 ) Built in 1886 in the tradition of the Russian-Byzantine direction, designed by architect P.E. Anikin ^[8] .

Church of the Holy Martyr Charalampius

Chapel

Abbot Corps

• Cell housings
• Hotel
• Monastery buildings
• Refectory
• Household

Holy Gates

• Towers and walls of the fence
• Monastery pond

Evening service - 16:00;
The water sanctuary in front of the icon of the Mother of God “The Inexhaustible Chalice” - on Thursdays, at the end of the Liturgy ;
Prayer service with the akathist to the holy martyr Charalampius - on Fridays, at the end of the Liturgy;
Paraclisis of the Mother of God - on Fridays, at the evening service
Prayer for the growth of love and the eradication of hatred and malice - the first Sunday of the month, at the end of the Liturgy;
Prayer to the Saints - on Sundays;
Akathist to Jesus the Sweetest - on Sundays at the evening service;
Memorial service - on Saturdays at the end of the Liturgy;
Religious procession around the walls of the monastery with the prayer "Virgin Mary, Rejoice ..." - daily, 12:00.

• July 9 celebrates the shrine of the monastery - the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God . The annual agricultural fair was held on the monastery grounds for this holiday. Later, the fair was moved outside the monastery, and the timing of its holding changed: June 26 (until the beginning of the 19th century), June 24–27 (until the end of the 1860s), June 24 – July 1 (from 1870), 23–28 June (from 1885), June 23-29 (from the 1890s). Since the 1990s, it began to be held in the first decade of July ^[13] .
• On October 30, a procession takes place along the streets of Tsivilsk, dedicated to the miraculous deliverance of the city from the robber units of the Cossack Stepan Razin . The procession takes place with a miraculous shrine, the patroness of the city - the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God.

• Tsivilsky Tikhvin Bogoroditsky Convent / [aut. O. Yu Sergeeva]. - [Cheboksary, 2008]. - 47 p. : col. silt - Dedicated. The 10th anniversary of the restoration of the Tsivilsky Tikhvin Mother of God Convent, 1998-2008. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91499-003-6 . - [2008-932]
• Smirnov A.P. Spiritual feat of Mother Superior Agnia. Tsivilsk, 2006