Domboksky Assumption Monastery

In Dombokah near Mukachevo in 1921, the Czechoslovak government established an agricultural school. Eight years later, it was closed, and the state sold numerous buildings for 125 thousand crowns to the parents of an Orthodox priest, Archpriest John Karbovanets, who served in the neighboring village. By purchasing this place, Archpriest John established an Orthodox cross there. After that, he appealed to the Mukachevo Diocesan Administration of the Serbian Orthodox Church with a letter in which he announced his intention to donate his land with buildings under an Orthodox monastery ^[1] .

On April 11, 1930, Archimandrite Alexy (Kabalyuk) agreed to the construction of the Orthodox monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God in the village of Domboki. On August 30, 1931, Bishop Iosif (Tsviovich) turned to Abbess Paraskeva (Prokop) from the Lipchansky Monastery. In the letter he wrote: “I ask you to allow the sisters who wish to go to Domboki”. In Domboki six sisters decided to go, including the nun Eupraxia (Hrychka), who became the prioress of the monastery ^[1] . At the end of 1932, during the construction of the temple, it was crowned with a dome in the Russian style ^[2] .

The new monastery had material difficulties, and the construction of housing for the nuns was problematic. In such a situation, Archimandrite Alexy sought help from more affluent parishes and communities, while he himself donated his property for the improvement of the monastery, of which he was to death ^[2] . Archpriest Vsevolod Kolomatsky prepared the documentation and headed the restructuring. The iconostasis was carved out by the famous master Ivan Pavlishynets from the village of Chopovtsy and the assistant Vasily Lendel from the village of Rakoshina , who later himself made a small altar for the icon of the Mother of God, and also carved a cross ^[1] .

In 1934, hieromonk Varlaam (Lead) was appointed to the monastery. In 1936, the sisters increased the altar in the church. Under the leadership of the nun Eupraxia and Archimandrite Alexy, the monastic economy changed and grew. At the monastery there was a sewing workshop in which priestly vestments for the Orthodox clergy were sewn to order ^[1] .

In 1938, the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, the Hearing Riser , which was written in Athos, was brought to Jerusalem to the monastery ^[1] .

Under the leadership of Rev. Alexy (Kabalyuk), the monastic economy was strengthened and grew by the labors of the sisters. By the end of the 1930s, about 25 sisters had already worked here. In addition to the temple and residential buildings in the monastery there were a chapel, a garden, a stable, a sewing workshop in which they sewed priestly clothing. The community had a lot of livestock, was engaged in agriculture ^[2] . In its development, the Dombotsky female monastery reached its zenith at the time of Hungary, when Fevronia (Ratsyuk) was appointed as abbess - on June 18, 1942 ^[1] .

In 1944, the sisters of the monastery hid 280 children from being taken away to work in Germany, who came here from other places in Ukraine, Belarus, and also from Russia, mainly from besieged Leningrad ^[3] . Nevertheless, the Soviet government wanted to close the monastic community after its establishment, and to set up a children's camp in it. But the resistance of the local population prevented this, however, for a time ^[2] .

Since 1957, with the beginning of the Khrushchev persecutions of the Church , the Soviet authorities again began to initiate the closure of the monastery in Domboki, which happened in 1959, and the sisters were transferred to Mukachevo St. Nicholas Convent, where they were 32 years before the revival in Dombok monastic monastery ^[3] . The church was desecrated and turned into a storeroom, and the main church and the Church of the Annunciation of the Virgin were destroyed. The nuns were resettled to other Transcarpathian monasteries. In the monastery itself there was a boarding school, for the purposes of which the reconstruction and adaptation of the premises was carried out ^[2] .

In 1990, there was a question about the revival of the monastery, but, first, it was necessary to return the Church to the building of the monastery, where the boarding school was located. After the petition of the representatives of the Mukachevo diocese to the local authorities, a gradual partial transfer of the buildings began. In the same 1990, the Assumption Monastery was given a single-storey building, half of the three-story building, where the church used to be, and a small plot of land. At the end of the year, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the opening of the Domboksky Monastery, where in the spring of 1991 the first Divine Liturgy was performed ^[2] .

The restoration of the monastery was difficult and long, because when the nuns came there, who were originally three, everything was in a dilapidated state. Needed a major overhaul, which required large funds. The nuns appealed for help to the leaders of various institutions. Soon the land was allocated to the sisters for business purposes. At the same time, it was agreed to jointly operate on the same territory of the monastery and the orphanage ^[2] .

By 1993, 37 nuns were already living in the Domboks monastery. Over time, the Cathedral Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos was restored (however, it is about 2 meters lower than it was ^[1] ), the painting of which was completed in 2004 ^[2] .

In 2016, another home church was consecrated in the name of St. Alexy of Karpatorussky ^[2] .

In 2017, about 30 nuns lived in Domboki and there were three churches: the Assumption, the Transfiguration, the house house and the Alekseevskaya house. In the Assumption Church of the monastery there are two miraculous icons of the Most Holy Theotokos: "Hearted Hearts" and "Akathist" ^[2] .

Every year, July 12-13, a procession takes place from Uzhgorod to Domboki, dedicated to the transfer of the icon of the "quick-hearted" to Transcarpathia ^[2] .

The website of the St. George's Church in Odessa gives the following description of the monastery by pilgrims who visited it in 2016: “Having crossed the threshold of this monastery, we immediately fell into an atmosphere of peace, love, sensitivity and unobtrusive attention from its nuns. Despite the old age of most of them, requiring silence and regularity, our noisy appearance did not touch their peaceful attitude at all. On the contrary, in the temple, in the refectory, and in the living rooms - we met only kindness, willingness to help and answer any question. <...> At the very beginning, watching the services for the nuns, we could not understand which of these mothers was the abbess. And only when the local parishioner approached the candle box and took the blessing from the nun who sells the candles did it become clear that this was an abbess ” ^[4] .