Location: Tatarstan Map
Found: 1613 by monk Filaret
Raifsky Monastery is a Russian Orthodox Monastery located in the Republic of Tatarstan. It was found in 1613 by monk Filaret.
Founding in the 17th century
The
Raifsky Monastery was founded in the 17th century by the hermit
Filaret, 27 km north-west of the city of Kazan. Upon the death of
his parents, following the advice of the gospel, he distributed all
his estate to the poor and tonsured into monasticism in the Moscow
Chudov Monastery. Throughout the Time of Troubles until the death of
Patriarch Hermogenes (January 12, 1612), he lived next to him and
was awarded the rank of hieromonk. Wishing to lead a strict monastic
life in solitude, which his friends and relatives violated in
Moscow, he left the capital and went to the lower provinces along
the Volga. In 1613 he came to Kazan. In Kazan, Filaret first lived
in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery of the Kazan Kremlin. In 1613,
this monk settled on the shores of Lake Sumy (Raifskoye), building a
secluded cell. At first, the hermit's cell stood alone, and only on
certain days did the local Cheremis come to the shore of the lake to
perform their pagan rituals (these forests have long been considered
sacred by the indigenous Cheremis inhabitants).
The encounter
of Orthodoxy with paganism led to the fact that the Mari themselves
spread the news about the appearance of a holy man on the shore of
the hut-cell. But soon this place became known to the Kazan devotees
of the ascetic, who began to visit him. Some of them decided to lead
a hermitic life and settled near Philaret, forming a monastic
hermitage. At the direction of Filaret, a chapel was built
(according to legend, it was erected after a vision to one of the
monks).
Filaret died in 1659, and in 1661 the Kazan
Metropolitan Lavrenty gave a blessing to found the monastery. The
monastery got its name in honor of the famous Raifsky monastery on
the shores of the Red Sea, where, according to church tradition,
Christian monks died at the hands of pagans; the cathedral church
was consecrated in honor of the Venerable Fathers, who were slain in
Sinai and Raifa.
In 1668, an exact copy of the Georgian Icon
of the Mother of God was brought to the monastery, a copy from the
original from the Montenegrin (Krasnogorsk) monastery near the
village of Pinegi (now the Arkhangelsk region). From the second half
of the 17th century to the present, the icon has been the main
shrine of the Raifa monastery, to which tens of thousands of
pilgrims come annually.
XVII - early XX century
Until the
fire in 1689, the monastery remained completely wooden. The stone
ensemble began to form at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries.
Battlements and towers were built in 1690-1717. They stretched along
the perimeter for more than half a kilometer and formed a
picturesque monastery Kremlin.
In 1708, a church was erected
in stone, consecrated in honor of the Venerable Fathers, who were
beaten in Sinai and Raif; in 1739-1827 - the Sophia church over the
fraternal cells (one of the smallest churches - no more than ten
people can be in the temple part); in 1835-1842 - a cathedral
consecrated in honor of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God and
built in the style of classicism (architect Mikhail Korinthsky); in
1889-1903 - the gate bell tower - the highest building of the
monastery (about 60 m); in 1904-1910 - the Trinity Cathedral in the
neo-Russian style (architect Fyodor Malinovsky).
On the eve
of the 1917 revolution, there were up to 80 monks and novices in the
monastery. The annual monastery feast was celebrated on July 31
(August 13 in the new style), when the Georgian icon of the Mother
of God was brought to Sviyazhsk with a procession of the cross and
remained there for twenty days.
Soviet period
In 1918 the
monastery was officially closed, although for several more years its
temples were used for divine services. In 1930, the last hieromonks
were arrested on charges of "counter-revolutionary, anti-Soviet
activity": Anthony (Chirkov), Varlaam (Pokhilyuk), Job (Protopopov),
Joseph (Gavrilov), Sergiy (Guskov) and novice Pyotr Tupitsin. In the
same year, they were all shot (in 1997, the Russian Orthodox Church
glorified them in the face of the Monk Martyrs of Raifa, and in 2020
their names were included in the Council of New Martyrs and
Confessors of the Russian Church).
Since the 1930s, a prison
for political prisoners was located on the territory of the
monastery, and later - a colony for juvenile delinquents. Repair
shops were located in the surviving temples.
State of the
art
The monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in
1991.
The first abbot of the revived monastery, Archimandrite
Vsevolod (January 23, 1959 - August 20, 2016) said that the revival
of the destroyed monastery could only be a miracle.
On June
23, 1991, the Georgian icon of the Mother of God was returned from
Kazan to the Raifa Monastery. On the same day, the first conciliar
divine service was held at the monastery.
During the 1990s,
almost the entire ensemble of the monastery was restored and a
full-fledged monastic life was restored. The brotherhood numbers up
to 30 people today.
The monastic vocal quartet "Parable",
created in 1993, is widely known. A shelter for boys has been
operating at the monastery since 1994.
On September 1, 1997, the Raifa Monastery was
visited by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia
and consecrated a spring and a water-sacred chapel in honor of St.
Sergius of Radonezh.
Since 2001 the newspaper "Raifsky
Vestnik" has been published in the monastery with the supplement for
children "Firefly", since 2011 the monastery has been annually
publishing the collection "Raifsky Almanac".
On June 1, 2005,
the Bank of Russia issued a 3-ruble silver coin in the series
"Architectural Monuments of Russia", which depicts the Raif
Monastery.
Since 2008 the monastery hotel "House of the
Pilgrim" has been operating.
On July 21, 2016, Patriarch
Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited the monastery.
In
2018, Hieromonk Gabriel (Rozhnov) was appointed governor of the
Raifa Monastery of the Mother of God. In 2019, the blessing of the
Metropolitan of Kazan and Tatarstan Theophanes was received for the
construction of the Nikolsky skete, and in the same year the Museum
of the history of the monastery was created.
The restored
architectural ensemble of the monastery is one of the brightest and
monuments of ancient Russian culture in the Middle Volga region. It
is especially picturesque due to the unique natural environment -
Lake Raifa (about 1.5 km long and 300 m on average) and a pine
forest (declared a nature reserve in 1960).
To this day,
there are four churches on the territory of the monastery:
a
cathedral consecrated in honor of the Georgian icon of the Mother of
God (built and consecrated in 1842),
a temple consecrated in
honor of the Venerable Fathers in Raif and Sinai, who were slain,
cathedral in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity,
gate temple
consecrated in honor of the Archangel Michael.
St. Sophia Church,
built at the end of the 18th century, is not operational and
requires restoration.
Address and directions
The
address of the Raifa monastery: 422537, Republic of Tatarstan,
Zelenodolsk district, Raifa town.
You can get to the
monastery from Kazan Northern Station by buses 552 and 554, from
Zelenodolsk bus station - by bus 405. The Raifa stop is located 100
meters from the monastery.