Zilantov Holy Dormition Monastery (Tat. Zilantau Assumption
Monastery, Cılantaw Dönyadan küçü käşişnäse) (Зилантов Успенский
монастырь is a female (until 1928 male) Orthodox monastery on the
Zilantova mountain in Kazan. It is located more than 2 km below the
Kazan Kremlin along the old route of Kazan (Arkhangelsky lane, 1).
A temple-monument with a church in the name of the icon of the
Immaculate Savior, built in 1823 over the fraternal grave of
soldiers who fell near Kazan in 1552, is attached to the monastery.
The monastery was founded by Tsar Ivan the Terrible on October 15,
1552 after the capture of the city. It was built on the spot where the
royal tent and camp church stood and where the Russian soldiers killed
under the walls of Kazan were buried. In 1559, the flood of the Volga
washed away and destroyed the monastery walls, after which the monastery
was moved to the top of the mountain. The monastery is surrounded by a
stone wall. The "unofficial" name of the monastery - "Zilantov" - refers
to the name of the mountain, on which, according to legend, a mythical
creature lived - the winged serpent Zilant.
The foundation of the
monastery is also associated with the burial at this place of "the first
holy martyr of Christ in the land of Kazan who shone" - John of Kazan.
Historian A. V. Roschektaev noted in this regard:
The history of
Zilantova Gora as a holy place for all Orthodox should not even begin
with the founding of the monastery, but from the time when once and for
all it became a kind of Kazan Golgotha - from the time of the First
Martyr of Kazan John. Just as the Dormition Bulgarian Monastery was
founded on the site of the martyrdom of St. Abraham of Bulgaria, “on the
blood,” so the Dormition Zilantov Monastery was founded on the site of
the martyrdom and burial of the one who, by the will of God, died for
Christ exactly 300 years after St. Abraham (1229 and 1529). Two
capitals: the city of Great Bulgar, at the zenith of its power, and the
city of Kazan as the "new Great Bulgar". And the imminent decline of the
earthly greatness of both in a matter of years after the martyrdom of
these saints. The end of the Volga Bulgaria as an independent state in
1236, the end of the Kazan Khanate in 1552. Both martyrdoms, as it were,
marked the threshold of new epochs and the verdict on those states that
killed them.
The main ensemble of the monastery was formed in the
17th century. It contained the Assumption Cathedral (1625), a church in
the name of Alexy the Metropolitan (1720), residential and outbuildings.
In 1640-1642. Bishop Joseph of Suzdal, exiled on charges of heresy,
lived in exile in the monastery.
In 1732-1740. in the monastery
there was the Kazan Theological Seminary, and since 1740 - the Newly
Baptized School. Later, both educational institutions moved to their own
buildings. In 1829-1850. The abbot of the monastery was Archimandrite
Gabriel, the author of the first multi-volume history of philosophy in
Russia.
In 1918, ten monks of the Zilantov Monastery, led by the
archimandrite, were shot without trial on an unclear charge of shelling
the Red Guards. For some time the monastery was inactive, but soon an
Orthodox community was formed on its basis. The community existed until
1928, and then was liquidated. In Soviet times, the ensemble on
Zilantova Gora was almost wiped off the face of the earth. The cemetery
of the monastery, which had burials of eminent citizens, was destroyed
in the 1930s.
In 1998, the former male monastery was revived as a female one. Of the old monastery, only the All Saints Church of 1681, thoroughly rebuilt in the 1890s, and the abbot's building of the early 19th century have survived. Other buildings of the monastery appeared in recent decades. Among them is the Trinity Cathedral, consecrated in 2006 - an exact copy of the eponymous cathedral of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
1. Cathedral of All Saints (Cathedral of the Assumption)
2. Cathedral of Trinity Zhivonachalnoy
3. Church of Saint Vladimir
4. Church of Saint Adriana and Saint Nataly
5. Entrance bell tower (reconstructed in 2004) and Church of Archangel Michael
6. Small bell tower (reconstructed in 2000- 2001)