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Donskoy Monastery was found in 1592. The legend claims that a year before this site was the location of a camp of Russian soldiers who defeated hordes of the Crimean khan Kaza Giray. The camp had an icon of the Church of Our Lady of the Don. Thus a monastery was named after the icon as Donskoy. In 1592 a cathedral was constructed and dedicated to Our Lady Mother of Don. It became known as a Small Cathedral after a much larger Great Cathedral was constructed in 1684- 98. By the late 17th century the monastery got defensive walls with 12 towers.
Donskoy Monastery is famous as a burial place of the Moscow aristocracy. It is famous for the splendour of decoration of gravestones. Some of the statues have protective fences to keep away from the vandals.
Small Cathedral of the don icon of the mother Of
God
The oldest temple-a monument to the Russian army in the
monastery, built in the form of Moscow architecture of the XVI
century. In its original form, it was almost square in plan, with
three rounded apses. Its volume was completed by three tiers of
kokoshniks, a light drum and a helmet-shaped dome. Later, by order
of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, two side chapels were added to the
Cathedral from the North and South — the great Martyr Theodore
Stratilat and the monk Sergius. In the same year, a refectory was
built from the West, a hipped bell tower was built in 1679, and the
helmet-shaped dome was replaced with the existing head. At the end
of the XVII century, the Cathedral and side chapels were painted by
the master of the Armory, the painters Leonti Chulkov and Fyodor
Evtiev. There are a number of graves under the Church, including a
cast-iron slab over the ashes of field Marshal Nikolai Repnin. The
main volume of the building is covered by a three-stage pyramid of
kokoshnikov, ending with a dome on a slender drum. Restoration work
carried out in 1950-1952, designed by art critic Nikolai Sobolev,
restored the original forms of the temple's portals and Windows.
Grand Cathedral of the Donskoy monastery
It is the
architectural dominant of the monastery. It was erected in 1698 and
consecrated by Metropolitan Tikhon (Voinov) of Sarsky and Podonsky.
Under the altar of the Cathedral in 1712, the Imeretian king Archil
created a side temple of the presentation of the Lord — the tomb of
the kings of Imereti, princes and princes of Georgia Dadians and
Bagrations. In 1748, according to a drawing by Vasily Obukhov, a
two-story sacristy with typical Baroque architraves was added to the
Cathedral from the South. In 1752, on the contributions of the
merchant Kuzma Zamyatin, cast-iron floors made of cast slabs with
template ornaments were built in the Church, which have been
preserved to this day.
The petal-shaped Cathedral is crowned
with five gilded chapters — the large one in the center and four
around, oriented to the cardinal directions. The main volume is
surrounded by a wide two-tiered arched gallery. It is flanked on the
West, North and South by three stair porches built on vaults
supported by double pillars in arches.
The eight-tiered
iconostasis of the Great Cathedral was created in several stages. In
1695, Karp Zolotarev created the two lower rows, and a year later
Abrosim Andreev and Grigory Alekseev erected the "Apostolic" tier
with carved decorations. In 1699, the iconostasis was completed by
the same masters. Most of the icons belong to the XVII century, with
the exception of the don icon of the mother of God — the end of the
XV century.
It was consecrated on August 18, 1991.
Gate Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the mother of God
The main
entrance to the Church is located opposite the Large Cathedral, on
the North side of the fence. According to the historian Igor Grabar,
its architect was Ivan Zarudny. Designed in the Moscow Baroque
style, it has a star-shaped plan and four tiers. The upper level is
separated from the interior space by vaults with open arches and is
intended for a belfry. In this Church, Patriarch Tikhon was allowed
to pray during his imprisonment. A cast-iron wrought-iron grating
from the beginning of the XVIII century has been preserved near the
porch. The iconostasis was erected in 1782 at the expense of
Agrafena Tatishcheva.
Muscovite period
The Donskoy monastery was
built on the site of the mobile fortress of Boris Godunov and the
field Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh with the icon of the don
virgin painted by Theophan the Greek. Legend has it that Dmitry
Donskoy took this icon with him to the battle of Kulikovo field in
1380, when the Tatars were defeated.
Initially, the Donskoy
monastery was quite poor and had only a few monks. In 1629, the
Donskoy monastery had 20 fields and 16 peasant yards (20 peasants in
total). In 1612, it was captured for one day by the
Polish-Lithuanian commander Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. In 1618, the
Russian Streltsy defeated the Ukrainian Cossacks of Peter
Konashevich under the walls of the monastery.
In the middle
of the XVII century, the Donskoy monastery was attached to the St.
Andrew's monastery. In 1678, however, its independence was restored,
and the monastery received rich donations, including more than 1,400
peasant families. In 1683, the Donskoy monastery was raised to the
Archimandrite level and received 20 tithes of nearby pastures.
Vidogoshchi, Zhizdrinsky, Sorokinskiy and Zelenoborskiy monasteries
was annexed to the don monastery between 1683 and 1685 years.
Imperial period
Since 1711, the vault of the Great Cathedral
was used for the burials of Georgian princes from the Bagration
family and German Dukes of the Dadiani family.
In 1724, the
monks and property of the St. Andrew's monastery were transferred to
the Donskoy monastery. By 1739, it already had 880 households with
6,716 farmers, 14 windmills, and several fishermen. In 1747, the
authorities tried to transfer the Slavic Greek Latin Academy to the
Donskoy monastery, but the monastery limited itself to paying
salaries to academic staff from its own Treasury.
Archbishop
Ambrose was killed inside the monastery during a Monstrous riot in
1771. In 1812, the French army captured the Donskoy monastery.
However, they were not very lucky. The most valuable items were
transported to Vologda before the arrival of the United European
army. In the monastery by 1917, there were 48 monks and 2 novices.
The Soviet period and the modern times
After the
October revolution, in 1918, due to changes in the state system, the
Donskoy monastery, like many other religious institutions, was
closed. Since 1922, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and all Russia was
held under arrest in the former Treasury chambers at the Northern
gate of the monastery. In December 1924, an attempt was made on his
life, during which his cellmate Yakov Polozov was killed. Tikhon
died a year later, on March 25, in the Bakunin clinic on Ostozhenka
and was buried in the Small Cathedral. Shortly after the arrest of
the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, in 1925, a meeting
of ten bishops was held in the monastery under the chairmanship of
Archbishop Gregory of Yekaterinburg, which formed the "Temporary
Supreme Church Council", which marked the beginning of the Gregorian
schism.
By 1926, the Donskoy monastery was listed in the
Moscow Department of public education as an open to the public
historical, cultural and household Museum. In the same year he was
transferred to the control of the Museum Department Glavnauka. In
1929, the Museum was closed, the community was liquidated, and an
anti-Religious art Museum began operating in their place. Valuable
documents of the XVIII-XIX centuries from the monastery's archive
were moved to the state archives — the Russian state archive of
ancient acts and the Central historical archive of Moscow.
In
1934, the monastery was transferred to the Museum of architecture,
which belonged to the Academy of architecture of the USSR. It
brought details and sculptural fragments of many demolished
structures, including the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the
Sukharev tower and the Church of the assumption of the mother of God
on Pokrovka. In the Church of the Archangel Michael, which was the
tomb of the Golitsyns, arranged a sculpture Museum. In 1936, the
dismantled Triumphal gate that stood on the square of the Belorussky
railway station was brought to the monastery. They were reassembled
and installed on Kutuzovsky Prospekt in 1967.
From 1946 to
1960, services were held in the Small Cathedral. During the
Khrushchev persecutions, the Church was proposed to be closed, but
Metropolitan Pimen of Krutitsky and Kolomna managed to save it,
combining it with the Church of the rizpolozheniya on Donskoy. After
that, it began to operate on holidays and on the days of Lent.
Modernity
On October 30, 1990, the Moscow city Executive
Committee decided to transfer seven churches of the Donskoy
monastery to the Russian Orthodox Church. In may 1991, monastic life
was revived in the monastery. Archimandrite Agafodor (Markevich) was
appointed the first vicar. In the same year, in honor of the 400th
anniversary of the monastery, a procession led by Patriarch Alexy II
took place there. In February 1992, during the renovation of the
Small Cathedral, a coffin with the relics of Patriarch Tikhon was
discovered. He was beatified, and his remains were transferred to
the great Cathedral in raka. In 1998, services were resumed in the
Church of Seraphim of Sarov.
In the 1990s, according to
researchers, the historical appearance of the monastery was
distorted by armored vehicles that survived the great Patriotic war
and new buildings placed just outside the entrance gate. In the late
1990s and early 2000s, under the vicar Agafodor, the interior of the
refectory of the Small Cathedral was painted by the artist Alexey
Rossal-Voronov. For these paintings, the artist was awarded the
Patriarchal award-the medal of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
In
2014-2016, the Small Cathedral was restored: the late roof
structures of the refectory, aisles and Cathedral were replaced with
new ones of historical forms, and the crosses on the bell tower and
chapels were restored. The facades were painted in the color found
during a full-scale survey, and the painted Windows of the XVI
century were recreated.