Epiphany Kremenets Monastery

Ground

The monastery in Kremenets was founded as a man’s in the first half of the 17th century , in 1636 ^{[2] [3]} . The initiator of the creation of the monastery, who in 1633 achieved the right to establish an Orthodox fraternity on the land belonging to him by King Vladislav IV Vaza (according to other sources, the monastery was founded in the same year as the fraternity ^[4] ), became the Volyn nobleman of the Orthodox faith Lavrenty Drevinsky . Daniil Malinovsky also participated in the construction ^{[5] [3]} . The brotherhood at the monastery was also called the Epiphany ^[5] . The construction was blessed by the Metropolitan of Kiev Peter Mogila ^[5] , who declared the Kremenets Monastery and Brotherhood subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople , and also prescribed the use of the charter of the Kiev-Brotherly Epiphany Monastery , the Kiev Brotherhood and the Kiev-Mohyla College, which later became the Kiev Theological Academy ^[6] . Later, the Kremenetsky Theological College was located at the original foundation of the monastery, and the monastery itself moved to the north side of the city ^[2] .

At the monastery until 1650 there was a printing house in which in 1638 the Grammar of Meletius (Smotrytsky) was published ^{[6] [7]} . In 1903, copies of this publication were still in the collection of the Volyn Theological Seminary ^[8] .

Uniate Period

In 1725, the monastery came under the jurisdiction of Greek Catholics ^[2] (according to other sources, this happened in 1701 ^[4] , and in 1725 its wooden buildings were replaced by stone ^[6] ). In 1753, near the monastery, the Jesuits built the basilica of Saints Ignatius and Stanislav and the corps of the Kremenets collegium , which lasted until 1773 . Its construction was begun in 1731 ^[6] .

Return to Orthodoxy

In 1839, the Kremenets Monastery again became Orthodox ^[2] . Moreover, until the restoration of Orthodox monasticism in it, the monastery was a separate parish, attributed to the Zagayetsk monastery of John the Merciful . In 1873, the monastery was assigned to the Holy Trinity Derman Monastery , to which it belonged in 1909 ^[5] . The monastery was supernumerary , and did not receive state funding ^[2] .

In 1880, the Orthodox St. Nicholas Brotherhood was again formed at the monastery, which came under the jurisdiction of the vicar of the Volyn diocese , to which the monastery belonged at that time ^[2] . It contained the St. Nicholas parish school. In 1886, the abbot of the monastery had the rank of hieromonk ^[2] , at the beginning of the 20th century this position belonged to the bishop of Ostrog ^[5] .

Polish period

From 1918 to 1939, the monastery was located in Poland , ending up in the USSR after the accession of Western Ukraine to it ^[4] . In 1919, the bishop of Kremenets Dionysius (Waledinsky) established a seminary at the monastery ^[6] on the basis of the closed Volyn Theological Seminary . It lasted until 1939 ^[9] .

Soviet period

During the Great Patriotic War , the monastery, shortly before it started on Soviet territory, was buried by the exarch of Ukraine, Metropolitan Alexy of Volyn and Zhytomyr , killed in 1943 by OUN (Melnikovtsy) militants ^[10] .

After the war, in 1953, the Kremenets Monastery was transformed into a women's monastery with the blessing of the Bishop of Lviv and Ternopil Pankraty (Kasperuk) , and a female monastic community from the village of Ushr was transferred to it. By 1959, 67 sisters lived in the monastery under the leadership of Mother Superior Animaisa. On July 29–30, 1959, the monastery was closed, despite a ten-year lease agreement concluded with the architecture department at the Ternopol Oblast Executive Committee.

“Every year, we carefully pay the rent, despite its gradual increase. We thought that the end of our nomadic life had come to an end, but again a cloud was looming, threatening our settledness. Dear Vladyka, keep in mind that we didn’t come here to Kremenets For six years, we have put a lot of effort and efforts to overhaul churches and other premises, both residential and non-residential. All our forces have exhausted here, a lot of health has gone ... During the periods of our nomadism we have suffered a lot, and besides half of our w Italians are elderly and disabled ... " Appeal of the Abbess Animaisa to Archbishop Palladius (Kaminsky) with a request to apply for the preservation of the monastery, April 15, 1959 ^[4] .

It was assumed that they would be housed in the buildings of the Dukhovsky monastery of the Pochaev Lavra , which was also subject to closure in connection with the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On Monasteries in the USSR" ^[4] , but as a result, 46 natives of the closed monastery were resettled in Holy Trinity Monastery in the city Korets of Rivne region , another 15 nuns did not want to move and went home ^[4] . A gym ^{[6] [10]} was located in the former temple of the monastery, and a hospital ^[4] in the monastic building.

On August 26, 1990, the icon of the Mother of God "The Sorrowful", which was stored in the monastery before the revolution and transferred to the Pochaev Lavra after closing, was transferred from Pochaev by a procession to the former place. This day is considered the day of the revival of the monastery ^[6] . In 1991, the nuns returned to the monastery. On April 3, 1996, the nun of the monastery became the nun Marionilla (Panasyuk) ^[11] . On December 6 of that year, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church elevated it to the rank of abbess ^[12] . For 2019, she still runs the monastery ^[13] .

July 25, 2006 the relics of Metropolitan Alexy (Gromadsky) were reburied in the monastery near the Church of John the Baptist ^[10] .

By the beginning of the 20th century , the monastery had three churches: the Epiphany (cathedral), Nikolsky and in the name of John the Baptist ^[5] at the belfry.