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Annunciation Monastery (Благовещенский монастырь) is a beautiful Russian Orthodox
monastery that was constructed in the 13th century. It stands on the
slope of a hill overlooking Volga river. Most of the churches in the
complex aren’t quite as old, but that shouldn’t be held against
them. A fine spot in town. The monastery was founded by the great
Vladimir-Suzdal prince Yury Vsevolodovich and St. Simon, Bishop of
Vladimir, in 1221 when laying the foundations of Nizhny Novgorod. In
1229, Prince Purgas destroyed and completely burned down the
monastery, killing monks. A hundred years later, Annunciation
monastery was revived, but in the winter of 1369 a collapse of snow
destroyed many of the buildings, killing the inhabitants.
The
revival of Annunciation monastery is associated with Metropolitan
Alexy. According to the chronicles, in 1357 he visited Nizhny
Novgorod on the way to the Golden Horde. According to legend, Alexy
stopped to rest near the source under the mountain on the banks of
the Oka River near the destroyed Annunciation monastery. The sight
of the devastated monastery touched St. Alexis, and he made a vow to
God: in case of a successful return from the Horde, to restore here
a cloister in honor of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos.
From the Horde, the Metropolitan was released “with great honor,”
since he healed the spouse of the Tatar khan Janibek Taydulu from
blindness, thereby saving Russia from a new devastating raid. The
vow was fulfilled: in 1370
The question of the time of the emergence of the
monastery is debatable. It is traditionally believed that it was founded
almost simultaneously with Nizhny Novgorod, and already in 1229 it was
ruined by the Mordovian prince Purgas. The studies mention that the
existence of the Annunciation Monastery is recorded in the Laurentian
Chronicle in 1229 and that this is the first reliable mention of the
monastery in written sources (in fact, the Monastery of the Holy Mother
of God is mentioned in the Chronicle). The myth that the monastery was
founded when Nizhny Novgorod was founded by the great Vladimir-Suzdal
Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich and St. Simon, Bishop of Vladimir, in 1221,
dates back to the 19th century. According to chronicles, under Yuri
Vsevolodovich, the monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos was founded near
Nizhny Novgorod. Church historian Archimandrite Macarius (N.K.
Mirolyubov) suggested that it was the Nizhny Novgorod Annunciation
Monastery. Since then, this opinion has been widely spread, although it
does not have any reliable data.
Historian A. A. Kuznetsov points
out that the identification of the Bogorodichny Monastery with
Blagoveshchensky has no scientific basis, except for the similarity of
the names of the monastery of the XIII century and the Blagoveshchensky
Monastery, which is mentioned only from the second half of the XIV
century. In his opinion, the identification of the Mother of God
Monastery of 1221 with the monastery of the Annunciation of the Mother
of God is based only on the coincidence of the name of the Mother of
God. In fact, the Mother of God monastery, in addition to the
Annunciation, could be associated with many Nizhny Novgorod monasteries:
the Dormition, Praise, Nativity, Intercession or the Entrance of the
Virgin into the temple. The author also noted that confusion in
historiography arose back in the 19th century, when the Nizhny Novgorod
local historian N.I. Khramtsovsky wrote: year, which is confirmed by
local legends. The authority of Stroev, an associate of N. M. Karamzin,
was extremely high for local historians, which, according to A. A.
Kuznetsov, influenced the creation of the history of the Annunciation
Monastery from 1229 to 1357, when Metropolitan Alexy allegedly restored
it.
The revival of the monastery is associated with Metropolitan
Alexy. According to chronicles, in 1357 he visited Nizhny Novgorod on
his way to the Golden Horde. According to legend, Alexy stopped to rest
near a spring under a mountain on the banks of the Oka, not far from the
destroyed Blagoveshchensk monastery. The sight of the devastated
monastery touched St. Alexis, and he made a vow to God: in the event of
a successful return from the Horde, to restore the monastery here in
honor of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos. The Metropolitan
was released from the Horde “with great honor”, as he healed the wife
of the Tatar Khan Dzhanibek Taidula from blindness, thereby saving Rus'
from a new devastating raid. The vow was fulfilled in 1370. Since then,
the Annunciation Monastery was assigned to the metropolitan, and with
the establishment of the patriarchate (1589) - to the patriarchal
houses, becoming a large feudal-economic complex of the region.
The revival of the monastery by Metropolitan Alexy is a
historiographical myth. The version about the foundation of the
monastery by the metropolitan was originally formed in hagiographical
literature, glorifying the deeds of this saint and at the same time
substantiating the new metropolitan status of the monastery. Nizhny
Novgorod local historians of the 19th century already knew about the
existence of the monastery in the 13th century and transformed the
“foundation” into “restoration”. However, no reliable information about
the participation of Metropolitan Alexy in the fate of the monastery was
found.
Historian D. Yu. Krivtsov spoke negatively about
scientific research on the reliability of the participation of
Metropolitan Alexy in the fate of the Annunciation Monastery. According
to the scientist, the "academic form of historicism" is aimed at
"deconstruction", and the more professional the scientist, the less he
knows. In his opinion, it doesn’t matter at all that there is no
reliable data on the connection between the life of Metropolitan Alexy
and the monastery, this does not in any way prevent “telling about the
role of this person in the fate of the Nizhny Novgorod Annunciation
Monastery.”
The location of the monastery assumed two functions:
defensive (provided an early warning of danger and time to hide behind
the walls of the monastery) and missionary (the monastery was the center
for the spread of Orthodoxy among the surrounding peoples). As early as
the 14th century, the monasteries of the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal
Principality became increasingly involved in the process of settling and
cultivating the developed lands. A significant part of the latter was
deserted, developed by the labor of monks, novices and peasants assigned
to the monasteries. From the end of the 14th century, the Annunciation
Monastery began to actively grow in crafts. In 1393, the Grand Duke of
Nizhny Novgorod Boris Konstantinovich granted the Annunciation Monastery
from his personal inheritance crafts: fishing and beaver ruts along the
Sura River: lakes Pashkovo, Solarevo, Ploskoe, Sosnovskoe, Dolgoe,
Myachtkoe and all the lakes from the Kurmyshka River down the left bank
of the Sura, to Volga. In 1399, the Nizhny Novgorod boyar Savva Syuzev
bequeathed to the monastery the patrimonial wasteland of the settlement
of Spasskoe in the Kurmysh district with side lands. According to this
charter from Mitrofan Izinsky from 1416-1417, the Annunciation Monastery
was given a wasteland on the Platinum Enemy with side lands. According
to the charter of Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich dated March 4, 1438, the
village of Yelenskoye and the village of Zaborskaya were deserted.
According to the charter of Grand Duke Daniil Borisovich of 1442 - the
village of Migino. In 1554, the monastery received the possession of the
village of Gnilitsa with adjacent lands in the Strelitzky camp.
Among the trustees of the monastery was also Osip Ivanovich Yermolov,
the direct ancestor of the famous general A.P. Yermolov. Osip Ivanovich
was a deeply religious person, on the days of patronal holidays,
surrounded by his faithful servants, he went on a pilgrimage to the
Annunciation Monastery, where his father Ivan Osipovich also went. On
each of his visits to the monastery, Osip Yermolov generously endowed
the monastic brethren with money and food, so that they prayed day and
night for the salvation of his soul. In 1631, Osip Ivanovich Ermolov
died. A few years before his death, having taken the monastic vows under
the name of Jacob, he went to the Annunciation Monastery, giving him a
significant part of his estate in Tyoply Stan.
In 1649, the
Cathedral of the Annunciation was builtGo to the section "The Cathedral
of the Annunciation" with a four-tier iconostasis and fresco painting
Later - Assumption Go to the section "Refectory with the Assumption
Church and the bell tower" and Alekseevskaya (Aleksievskaya) Go to the
section "Church of Alexy the Metropolitan" of the church.
In the
18th century, a manuscript kondakar of the 12th-13th centuries was found
in the monastery, which was called the Annunciation (Nizhny Novgorod),
one of the oldest monuments of Russian hymnography. In the 1880s, the
monastery's cathedral was restored by the Nizhny Novgorod architect R.
Ya. Kilevein.
In 1886, the recluse Schiebishop Jeremiah
(Soloviev) was buried in the monastery.
In the 20th century and
now
After the revolution, the monastery was closed. In 1948-2005, the
Nizhny Novgorod Planetarium was located in the Alekseevskaya Church of
the monastery.
The revival of the monastery began in 1993. First,
a theological school was opened in the monastery, which two years later,
by the decision of the Holy Synod, was transformed into a theological
seminary. Hieromonk Kirill (Pokrovsky) became its first rector and
spiritual father.
A porcelain iconostasis was installed in the
restored church of St. Alexis in 2007. There are porcelain iconostases
in several churches in Moscow, on Valaam, in Yekaterinburg. In Nizhny
Novgorod, this is the first experience of installing such an iconostasis
in a church.
On April 7, 2009, on the feast of the Annunciation,
the icons of the forefathers row of the unique ancient Russian
iconostasis of the Annunciation Cathedral were consecrated, the icons
depict the forefathers Abel, Isaac, Noah, Seth, Enoch and Abraham.
Since 2010, the parishioners of the monastery have been helping to
restore the Church of John the Baptist in the village of Prudishchi.
On May 7, 2011, Archbishop George of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas
consecrated the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
On August 23,
2013, a bronze bust monument to Emperor Alexander III (sculptor A. A.
Apollonov) was solemnly opened on the territory of the monastery.
Blagoveshchensky cathedral
Built on the site of a
white-stone cathedral of the XIV century. With its construction in 1648,
stone work began in the monastery, when Velyamin Cherstkin obtained a
royal charter for duty-free transportation of bricks from Balakhna. Iron
for communications was supplied from the patriarchal storerooms of the
Moscow Kremlin. Chronicles date the completion of construction to 1649.
The temple is made with many architectural, artistic and design
features inherent only to it. It was erected according to the type of
six-pillar, but the vaults and domes support four pylons. The western
pair of pillars is missing, and the formed space is covered with a
closed vault with formwork. The eastern wall, like the Yaroslavl
temples, is placed on the altar vaults. Heads of different shapes:
central - bulbous, four small lateral - helmet-shaped. Zakomaras are
made with a three-center outline, referring to the barrel roofs of
ancient Russian buildings. Under the building there is a sub-church
(warehouse) with two entrances, which was entered by carts along the
ramp from the north side.
Initially, the central dome of the
cathedral was covered with ant tiles, the side ones - with white iron.
The porches inside, open to the sides, had fresco painting, the western
and northern entrances were barrel roofs. After repeated fires in the
18th century, the architect Ya. A. Ananyin in 1780-1785 repaired the
temple: the roof was replaced with a four-pitched one.
The
iconostasis of the cathedral was filled with many ancient images adorned
with precious stones and pearls, including: the Mother of God with the
upcoming (993, the Greek iconographer Simeon), the image of Alexy the
Metropolitan "in life" (XIV century) and others. In 1820, the icon
painter from Palekh P.P. Korin painted new images on the old twelve
boards.
In 1825-1827, the architect Ivan Efimov repaired the
cathedral. In 1870-1872, academician Lev Dal carried out the restoration
of the building, returning the temple to its original form.
On
September 1, 2021, a monument to St. Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow and
All Rus', was unveiled in front of the Annunciation Cathedral (the
author of the monument is Nizhny Novgorod sculptor Alexei Shchitov).
Church of Alexis Metropolitan
Built in 1821-1834. During the
period of the transfer of the Makariev Fair to Nizhny Novgorod and the
arrival of hundreds of thousands of merchants and travelers in the city
since 1817, the authorities of the Annunciation Monastery turned to the
government in 1821 with a request to expand the territory by cutting the
territory freed from residential development from the east of the
monastery. Permission has been granted. On July 26, 1822, Archimandrite
Macarius turned to Bishop Moses of Nizhny Novgorod for a blessing for
the construction of a new church in honor of the Resurrection of Christ
with three chapels. A “person” who wished to remain anonymous agreed to
finance the construction. The project of an impressive stone building
with four columned porticos on the cardinal points was created by I. I.
Mezhetsky, finalized by A. L. Leer.
By the end of 1823, the walls
were completed. By August 1825, the building was ready in rough form,
but there were not enough funds for finishing. Only on March 16, 1826,
the Nizhny Novgorod merchant of the first guild, M. I. Kostromin,
donated 20 thousand rubles for the completion. By August 1834, the
iconostasis was installed, the interiors were painted. On September 15,
a decree was issued on the consecration of the temple in honor of Alexy
the Metropolitan. In 1823-1826, the square in front of the temple was
fenced with a stone wall with two corner towers and holy gates, the
project of which was made by the architect V. N. Voronov.
Refectory with Assumption Church and bell tower
It was built in
1649-1652 after the Cathedral of the Annunciation. It occupies the
southwestern part of the monastery, representing an L-shaped building in
plan on a high (4.47 m) sub-church. The building of the Assumption
Church is elongated along the north-south axis in width due to the
adjoining one-pillar refectory chamber, completed with two decorative
tents, the heads of which were originally covered with tiled tiles and
crowned with gilded forged crosses. The decoration of the exteriors of
both the church and the bell tower are similar, which indicates their
simultaneous construction. On the ringing tier of the bell tower there
were 11 bells, including one cast in 1615 weighing one hundred pounds.
In the sub-church there were pantries, a bakery and a kitchen, the
smoke channels of which heated the upper rooms. In the 17th century,
brick vaulted holy gates with a single-domed front church in honor of
St. Andrew the First-Called adjoined the bell tower from the north. The
gate served as the main entrance to the monastery from the side of
Blagoveshchenskaya Sloboda.
Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh
It was built by 1690 near the southwestern corner of the Annunciation
Cathedral at the expense of the patriarchal sacristan Joseph Bulgakov,
who had retired to the monastery. The temple rises in an octagon, the
only cupola was covered with ant tiles and was crowned with a gilded
forged cross. The window architraves had a form characteristic of
Russian baroque at the end of the 17th century. The church had a
single-apse altar, the western porch was wooden. In the 1820s, the
architect I. E. Efimov replaced the latter with a stone one, the entire
width of the gallery of the cathedral.
Initially, it was called
Alekseevskaya, but after the construction in the middle of the 19th
century of a new temple in the monastery in honor of Alexy Metropolitan,
the church was re-consecrated in memory of Sergius of Radonezh, who
visited Nizhny Novgorod in the 14th century.
hospital building
Refers to the XVII century. Initially, it limited the north-eastern part
of the monastery territory with the stone buildings adjoining it and the
gate church of John the Theologian. Initially, it consisted of two
two-story boards separated by vaulted vestibules (one of them has been
preserved). The first floor was a single-pillar chamber - an example of
the modular method of construction by ancient Russian architects of the
once common type of chambers. The upper floor has a closed vault with
formwork above the openings.
Cell building
Refers to the XVIII
century. It beats off the southeastern line of the monastery territory.
Erected by the architect Ya. A. Ananyin during the General Land Survey
of Nizhny Novgorod and the repair of monastery buildings in 1780-1786.
Part of the premises of the building was used as cells, others as a
hotel for visiting pilgrims.
Archimandrite Corps
The exact
date of construction is not known, it refers to the 17th century. The
building limits the monastery territory from the northwest. Initially,
in this place, over the cliff to the Oka, there were single-story
hospital wards, but after the construction of a new two-story hospital,
the building was built on the second floor with a high hipped roof with
four dormers and a circular bypass with railings. Here are the chambers
of the archimandrite. By 1825, the building was in disrepair and was
rebuilt in 1826-1828 and 1876-1882.
Alekseevskaya chapel
She
stood over the keys that were beating from under the mountain on the
approaches to the monastery. The spring near the chapel has been
preserved. According to legend, Metropolitan Alexy cut down the chapel
in 1357. In 1725-1727, instead of a wooden one, an octahedral stone one,
crowned with a tent, was placed. During the redevelopment of Nizhny
Novgorod in 1834-1839, it was decided to move the chapel closer to the
Oka, and enclose the spring in a collector. The project, which repeated
the ancient forms, was developed by the city architect G. I. Kizevetter.
In 1928 the chapel was demolished; in its place in 2007, a worship
cross was installed. A little later (in the same year), not far from the
cross, a winter wooden chapel of the “octagon on a quadrangle” type was
built, and next to the Holy Spring, an octagonal summer chapel was
built.
The Annunciation Sloboda is the first land possession
of the monastery, presumably arose simultaneously with the foundation of
the monastery. Located in a semi-mountain above the mouth of the Oka,
for centuries it was assigned first to the metropolitan, later, from
1589, to the patriarchal house, which created a unique management
system: the affairs of the settlement were in charge of Moscow, it
existed as an autonomous settlement inside Nizhny Novgorod. In 1592,
there were 12 bobyl yards in the settlement, in 1622 - 35, in 1646 -
371. Gradually, large industrialists and merchants appeared among the
slobodans, whose fortunes were equated to the capitals of the hundreds
of living merchants and were taxed on a par with them.
According
to the Council Code of 1649, it was ordered to transfer all the city
possessions of the monastery to the settlement. However, the patriarch
retained Blagoveshchenskaya Sloboda in his possession, but began to pay
rent for it to the treasury in the amount of 14 rubles. 32 altyns - less
than the annual dues of one Slobozhan industrialist. In 1665, there were
353 courtyards in the settlement, 642 men lived in them. Among the
Slobozhans were well-known and wealthy industrialists Kalmykovs,
trader-manufacturer Afanasy Pervov.
By a government decree of
November 24, 1699, Blagoveshchenskaya Sloboda was transferred to the
treasury and subsequently repeatedly complained to private ownership. In
the 1770s, it belonged to Lieutenant-General N. I. Roslavlev, but with
the establishment of the Nizhny Novgorod viceroy in 1779, it was
assigned to the city, retaining its name, and 547 residents were
recorded in the merchant and petty-bourgeois estate of Nizhny Novgorod.
shrines
Before the revolution of 1917, the revered copy of the
Korsun Icon of the Mother of God was kept in the monastery. The
inscription on the riza, made in two languages - Slavic and Greek, read:
"This image was written in the summer of 6501 (903) by Simeon the
hieromonk." When the monastery was destroyed, the list disappeared,
although it had previously remained unscathed in three fires. In the
iconostasis of the Annunciation Cathedral of the monastery there is a
modern copy of the icon.