Gorny Monastery is a Russian Orthodox Monastery in Ein Karem, 7 km to the South West of Jerusalem. The history of this female monastery started in 1871 when the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) baught a small garden of olive trees near Jerusalem.
Location: 7 km to the South West of Jerusalem
Small community was settled and three years later they received their charter and officially Gorny Monastery was found. The fist monastery church was dedicated in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. This is the main church in the monastery compound and also gave the monastery its nick name "Moscovia" Monastery. In Arabic this word is translated as "Moscow" as a reference to traditional Russian Orthodox churches found in the region. The Cave shrine is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and was consecrated in 1987. Community of Gorny Monastery started construction of the cathedral dedicated to all Saint of Russian Land in 1911, but outbreak of World War I and subsequent Russian Revolution of 1917 stopped all work. Construction resumed almost a century later in 2003 and completed in 2007. Just in time to celebrate 160th anniversary of the Gorny Monastery.
In 1869, the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem,
Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin), decided to buy a plot with two houses
and an olive tree plantation 7 km southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem
near the village of Ein Karem, which is traditionally considered the
birthplace of John the Baptist and The meeting of the Virgin Mary with
the righteous Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56). The owner of the plot, the
former dragoman of the French consulate in Jerusalem, Hannah Dzhelyad,
asked for 4,000 napoleons (80,000 francs or about 25,000 silver rubles)
for him. A special committee was set up in Russia to collect this
amount.
Immediately after the purchase of the site in 1871,
individual nuns and pilgrims settled on it. The first monastery church
was consecrated on February 14, 1883 in honor of the Kazan Icon of the
Mother of God. Today it is the main temple of the monastery, it houses
the miraculous Kazan icon of the Mother of God. To the right of the
entrance to the Kazan Church is a relocated shrine - a stone on which,
according to legend, John the Baptist preached. This stone was brought
to the monastery from the outskirts of Jerusalem, not far from the
so-called "desert" of John the Baptist, near the modern village of
Even-Sapir.
The community of nuns received the status of a
monastery from the Holy Synod in 1898, and in 1903 an icon-painting and
gold-embroidery workshop was opened in the monastery, at the expense of
which the monastery fed itself.
In 1910, the construction of the
cathedral began, which was supposed to be consecrated in honor of the
Holy Trinity. It ceased due to the outbreak of the First World War.
By 1914, there were about 200 nuns in the monastery, who, at the
request of the Ottoman authorities, had to leave the monastery and move
to Alexandria, from where they returned in 1918 to the damaged
monastery. However, through the efforts of the sisters, he was restored.
Due to the impossibility of communication with the Moscow
Patriarchate, the monastery, like the entire Russian Ecclesiastical
Mission, since 1920 came under the control of the Russian Orthodox
Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). In 1924, the Gornensky community again
received the canonical status of a monastery.
Many of the nuns
who came to the monastery during these years were Russian emigrant nuns
who fled to Bessarabia, from there to Serbia, and then to the Holy Land.
Only a few novices were from Arab women.
In 1945, after a visit
to the Holy Land by Patriarch Alexy I, a division arose among the
sisters of the monastery on the issue of jurisdiction, most of them were
supporters of the transition to the jurisdiction of the Moscow
Patriarchate. Then the Jerusalem Patriarchate placed at the disposal of
these sisters a Greek temple in Ein Karem.
During Operation
Nakhshon, when the bombing of Ein Karem began in July 1948, the sisters
left the monastery and fled to the Jordanian part of Palestine (the
Monastery of Olives).
After the formation of the State of Israel
in 1948, the monastery (as well as the buildings of the Russian
Ecclesiastical Mission) was transferred by the Israeli authorities to
the Soviet government (Moscow Patriarchate). The nuns, who did not want
to go under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, remained in the
Olivet Monastery under the control of ROCOR. The five nuns moved to
Chile, where in 1958 the Assumption Monastery was founded by Archbishop
Leonty (Philippovich).
Since the mid-1950s, the monastery began
to replenish with nuns who came from the USSR. It continued to be one of
the active monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) throughout
the subsequent history of the USSR, being the only convent of the Moscow
Patriarchate outside the Soviet borders.
In 1987, the cave church
was consecrated in honor of St. John the Baptist.
In 1997, the
construction of the Cathedral in honor of the Holy Trinity was resumed,
completed in 2007 for the 160th anniversary of the monastery. On October
28, 2007, the church was consecrated with a small rank in honor of All
Saints who shone in the Russian land, and on November 12, 2012,
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow performed a great consecration of the church.
Special feast of the monastery
At the request of Archimandrite
Antonin (Kapustin), the Holy Synod, by decree of August 5, 1883, blessed
the celebration of a feast in the Gornensky Monastery - “The Kissing of
Mariino, or the Coming of the Mother of God to the Mountain City of
Judas”, usually celebrated on April 12 (March 30 according to the old
style). This is due to the fact that the monastery is located a few
dozen meters from the place where, according to legend, the meeting of
Mary with the righteous Elizabeth took place (the Franciscan Church of
the Visitation is currently located on that place).
Since then,
on the eve of the Feast of Kissing, the icon of the Annunciation of the
Most Holy Theotokos has been transported from the Holy Trinity Cathedral
in Jerusalem to the Gornensky Monastery, where it remains for three
months until the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist on July 7
(June 24, O.S.), since the Mother of God was here Elizabeth has three
months. This icon is placed in the abbot's place in a blue robe like a
monastic mantle, placing the abbot's rod next to it. During these three
months, the Most Holy Theotokos herself is the abbess of the monastery.
There is no such celebration in the general church calendar of the
Russian Orthodox Church.
Abbesses of the monastery
1992 -
March 11, 2020 - Abbess George (Shchukin). On March 11, 2020, by the
decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (magazine No.
27), she was appointed honorary abbess of the Gornensky Monastery, died
on February 6, 2022.
Since March 11, 2020 - Abbess Ekaterina
(Chernysheva), former Dean of the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveevo Convent.