Sviyazhsky Assumption Monastery

The Sviyazhsky Virgin-Assumption Monastery was founded in 1555 simultaneously with the establishment of the Kazan diocese. The founder of the monastery and its first rector was Archimandrite German (Sadyrev-Polev), who later became the second archbishop of Kazan, (1564–1566), glorified in the face of saints as St. German, the Kazan miracle worker. Its celibate relics have been the main shrine of the monastery since 1592.

The Sviyazhsky Virgin Assumption Monastery is the main Orthodox spiritual, enlightenment and missionary center of the Kazan diocese and the Middle Volga region during the 16th-18th centuries. According to the surviving information, a printing press for printing the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books appeared in the monastery under Saint German, earlier than the printing house of Ivan Fedorov in Moscow.

In the XVI-XVIII centuries the monastery was the richest in the Middle Volga region and was one of the 20 richest in Russia . Sviyazhsky archimandrite was assigned the 7th place in importance in Russia. In the lands of the monastery on the eve of the reform of 1764, there were 7200 male peasant souls - as many as in all the other monasteries of the Kazan diocese combined.

According to the monastic reform of 1764, the monastery was elevated to class I - the highest for the monasteries of the Russian Empire . Until 1809, it was the only first-class in the Kazan diocese (since 1809 the Kazan Bogoroditsky monastery also received this status).

The impoverishment of the city of Sviyazhsk in the 19th century, as well as the consequences of the secularization of church lands in 1764, led the monastery to decline. The fraternity, which once exceeded 100 people, barely reached 20-25 monks and novices by the beginning of the 20th century, and the income of the monastery began to yield to the income of other monasteries of the diocese.

On August 9, 1918, the last abbot of the monastery, Bishop Sviyazhsky Ambrose (Gudko) ^{[2] [3]} , glorified in the face of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 2000, was brutally killed without trial by the Red Army.

During the formation of godless power, the monastery was closed and plundered, and the cancer with the relics of St. Herman was opened by the Red Guards. Subsequently, the relics were hidden under the throne of the cemetery church of the Yaroslavl miracle workers of the city of Kazan, and in 2000 they were again returned to Sviyazhsk.

In Soviet times, the territory of the monastery was occupied by a psychiatric hospital , which was withdrawn in 1994.

In 1997, the Sviyazhsky Virgin-Assumption Monastery was officially revived.

On June 14, 2019, the memorial cell of the founder of the monastery, St. German (Sadyrev-Polev), was restored and opened in the monastery ^[4] .

The ensemble of the monastery is of unique historical and architectural value, by which it has no equal in the Middle Volga. Its most ancient temples - the Assumption Cathedral ( 1561 ) and the Nikolskaya refectory church ( 1556 ) with a 43-meter bell tower - are recognized masterpieces of Russian architecture of the 16th century. The Assumption Cathedral and its frescoes of the same 1561 are especially valuable for art historians . This is a monument in the style of Pskov - Novgorod churches (the alleged architects are Postnik Yakovlev and Ivan Shiryai). In the XVIII century, he received a new dome in the Ukrainian Baroque style and 12 patterned baroque kokoshniks, but for the rest his appearance of the XVI century remained unchanged.

The frescoes inside the cathedral cover a total area of ​​1080 m². This is one of two churches in Russia, where the full cycle of wall painting from the era of Ivan the Terrible (the second is the Cathedral of the Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl ) has been preserved. In general, we know Russian fresco painting of the 16th century, mainly only by the example of the named cathedrals: many more ancient and later frescoes have been preserved, but there is a big gap in the 16th century . In this sense, Sviazhsky murals are a world rarity. Their most famous compositions: “Fatherland” (“New Testament Trinity”) in the dome, “Assumption of the Mother of God” at the altar, “Crucified Christ on the chest of the God of hosts ” in one of the sails of the arch, “Procession of the Righteous into Paradise”, “ St. Christopher ” (the only surviving fresco in the world where this saint, according to the apocryphal version, is depicted with a horse's head). It is also unique that the murals of the western wall do not contain the traditional composition of fiery hell, depicting only heavenly cloisters.

Other monuments of the monastery belong to the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries: so-called. bishop , abbot and fraternal corps. Ascension Gate Church (end of the 17th century) and the Church of Sts. German Kazan and Mitrofan Voronezh (XIX century) were destroyed in Soviet times.

The almost kilometer-long fence of the monastery, giving it the appearance of the Kremlin, dates back to the 18th – 19th centuries.

1. Cathedral of the Assumption
2. Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
3. Church of St. German Kazan and St. Mitrofan of Voronezh
4. Church of the Ascension over the Holy Gates
5. Bishop's Corps
6. Monastery College
7. Brotherly corps
8. Fence
9. Household gate
10. Bathhouse
11. Necropolis
12. Household yard

Sviyazhsk, Zelenodolsky district, Republic of Tatarstan , 422500.

Directions: from the Kazan River Station to the Sviyazhsk River Station.

Directions: Federal highway M7 "Volga" (Gorky highway). Kazan - Sviyazhsk (up to 70 kilometers, after the bridge over the Sviyaga river and the next police post (Isakovo village), a road junction was built - turn left, then signs.

Directions: Suburban railway station of Kazan, western direction of electric trains (for example: Kanash, Bois, Albaba, Sviyazhsk railway station), then by car 15 km.

Official site of the Sviyazhsky Virgin-Assumption Monastery: http://sviyazhsk-monastery.ru/

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  Gate bell tower

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  Archimandrite Corps

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  Brotherly corps

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  Assumption Cathedral

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  interior of the Assumption Cathedral

• Roshchektayev A.V. History of the Sviyazhsky Assumption Monastery
• The Bogoroditsky-Sviyazhsky Assumption Monastery // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• Monastery News
• About the monastery on the site of the Kazan diocese