Lavra - Zvenigorod Rus - New Jerusalem

The route includes three holy cloisters of the Moscow region: the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery and the New Jerusalem Monastery, which are visited annually by tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists. You are invited to look at these, perhaps the most famous monasteries in the surroundings of Moscow from a new perspective - as places where a considerable number of common Christian holy places are located. The route "Lavra - Zvenigorod Rus’ - New Jerusalem" became the storyline of the release of the program "Holy Places of Russia" on the TV channel "Spas", dedicated to the Moscow region.

The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, which is the largest male monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church, is located in the center of Sergiev Posad, on the river Konchure. The monastery was founded in 1337, That time St. Sergius of Radonezh, who is called "Hegumen of the Russian Land" settled on the hill Makovets, which is in 70 km from the monastery.

"Hegumen of the Russian Land"

The rumor about Sergius spread quite quickly, attracting monks who were looking for experienced spiritual guidance. Soon the fraternity of 12 chernets was formed in the small cloister. In 1354, Sergius took abbot over the monastery. The monk possessed the gift of miracles: he healed illnesses and even resurrected the young man after the request of this man’s desperate father. The most famous miraculous event, associated with the name of Sergius, entered Russian history forever. Sergius was the Monk who blessed Grand Duke Dimitri Donskoy to the battle with the Mamai hordes on the Kulikovo Field in 1380.

Beginning in 1422, when the stone Trinity Cathedral was laid on the site of the wooden church, the monastery was rebuilt and developed. During the construction of the cathedral, the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh were found.

In the Time of Troubles (in Russian these times are called “Smutnoe Vremya”), the monastery withstood a 16-month siege by Polish-Lithuanian interventionists. It was removed by Russian troops under the leadership of Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky. The monastery was one of the strongholds of the Home Guard of Minin and Pozharsky.

The monastery prosperity time began in 1618.

During the period of Streletsky uprising in 1682, Tsarevna Sophiia Alekseyevna, Tsarevitches Ivan and Peter took refuge behind the monastery walls, and in 1689 the future first Russian emperor Peter I hid there. The later development of the monastery almost stopped due to the Northern War and the construction of St. Petersburg, which were implemented by Peter I.

In the XVIII – XIX centuries, the Trinity Lavra of St.Sergius was the richest monastery in Russia, it was among the largest landowners. Trinity Lavra’s importance as a cultural and educational center also increased: in 1814 the Theological Academy was transferred from Moscow to the Lavra.

By the beginning of the 20th century, St. Sergius's Lavra had a printing house, two hotels, workshops, shops and horse yards. Shopping arcades, hotels and apartment houses appeared near the monastery. More than 400 monks lived in the monastery, several small monasteries and sketes were attributed to it.

With the establishment of the Soviet regime, the Trinity Lavra of St.Sergius was turned into a labor artel and then completely closed. Monastic life was revived in 1946.

In 1993, the architectural ensemble of the Monastery entered the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The white-stone Trinity Cathedral is one of the most important monuments of early Moscow architecture. This is the main cathedral church and the oldest surviving buildings of the Trinity Monastery. Also it’s the first stone-made building of the Monastery.

The cathedral has a unique iconostasis: the second hegumen of the monastery, the Monk Nikon of Radonezh, shortly before his death, turned to icon painters Andrei Rublev and Daniel Cherny with a request to paint the Trinity Cathedral.

This is the only architecture complex, which was built in the beginning of the 15th century and preserved in the temple.

Serapion Chamber

There is a vaulted double forged iron door next to the sanctuary of St. Sergius. This is the entrance to the Serapion Chamber which is a place in the southern porch of the Trinity Cathedral, where more than five hundred Orthodox shrines rent. The chamber was named after the Novgorod archbishop Serapion, who was buried here, and after the former archimandrite of the Trinity Monastery.

There used to be a cell of Sergius of Radonezh  in the place of the Serapion Chamber. It was here that the Mother of God appeared with two apostles to Sergius of Radonezh.

Dormition Cathedral was founded at the behest of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. There was specially freed from the old wooden cells in the very center of the Lavra, a place for the temple.

The main holy place of the cathedral is a wooden coffin, made by the founder of the monastery himself, in which the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh remained until 1585.

The Spiritual Church is the second stone church of the monastery, and it is located on the site of an earlier wooden Trinity Church. The temple was built by Pskov masters and is considered the oldest surviving building of the type “church under the bells”.

The Metropolitan of Moscow Plato (Levshin), who, as the rector of the Trinity-Sergius seminary, began to equip the Savior-Vifana monastery, was buried in the Spiritual church.

Initially, the church was built as a gate church on the site of the church in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, but in the 16th century the monastery wall was moved a few meters to the east, and the Church of John the Baptist happened to be inside the monastery. The lower tier of this Church is cut by the arch of the entrance gate, which was called the Holy Gates.

Hodegetria is one of the most common types of images of the Virgin with the baby Jesus.

The church was built in the middle of the XVIII century on the place, where the stone building of the brotherly kitchen was located.

Now the icon is located in the Sergiev Posad Museum of History and Art, and there is a revered copy on the outer eastern wall of the church.

The Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery was born in 1398 near Zvenigorod on the Storozhe mountain, where the river Rozvadnya (later called the Storozha) flowed into the Moscow River. The Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery is the third most visited in Russia after the Trinity Lavra of St.Sergius and the Seraphim-Diveevo monastery. It is the main attraction of the Zvenigorod land, which is called “Russian Switzerland” for the beauty of nature.

Zvenigorod Rus’ and “Russian Switzerland”

The monastery was founded by Saint Sabbas of Storozhi (Storozhevsky). He is the miracle worker from Zvenigorod and on the first and the closest disciples of Sergius of Radonezh. Sabbas Storozhevsky is one of the most revered and at the same time mysterious saints of the Russian land, whose life before the appearance of the monastery on Mount Storoz is very little known. For most of his life, the Monk saint was in the Trinity Monastery with the Monk Sergius.

A turning point in the history of the future Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery was Prince Yuri's campaign in the Itil Bulgaria, which the territory of the Golden Horde in 1395. According to the chronicle sources, Sabbas blessed Yuri Dmitrievich on the march, which ended in complete victory.

In the midst of construction, in 1398, already an old hegumen Sabbas, at the urgent invitation of Prince Zvenigorod and Galich Yuri, left the Trinity Monastery and came to Zvenigorod with the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God.

The Monk Sabbas of Storozhi passed away on December 3 (December 16 in a new style) of 1407. Twenty-seven years later, the spiritual son of Sabbas, Prince Yury, died. Deprived of a spiritual mentor and an earthly trustee, “Russian Switzerland” has declined over the century. And the descendants of the brother of Prince Yury Vasily carefully deleted almost everything connected with the activities of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod and, accordingly, of St. Sabbas from the Russian chronicles. However, the miracle worker of Zvenigorod was revered locally, and then he was canonized at the Moscow Council in 1547. The monastery became known as Savvino-Storozhevskaya.

 At the beginning of the 15th century, a white-stone Christmas Cathedral was built on the territory of the nascent monastery. St. Sabbas was buried at its entrance.

At the beginning of the 17th century, during the period of the Polish-Lithuanian intervention, the monastery suffered serious damage. The monastery and the whole district were robbed by the troops of False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II, as well as the Polish prince Vladislav.

When the Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich conquered, the main buildings and fortress walls with seven towers were built (six of them were preserved), temples were built, the royal residence, 19 monasteries were attributed to the monastery of St. Sabbas. In addition, the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery became Lavra (some historians believe that it gained this status before the Kiev-Pechersk and Trinity-Sergius monasteries) and was equated to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.

On January 19 (February 1 in a new style) in 1652 the acquisition of the relics of St. Savva Storozhevsky took place on the initiative of Alexei Mikhailovich.

From the beginning of the 18th century, the monastery gradually lost its privileged position and a significant part of the land holdings, but sovereigns continued to visit it, including Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great.

In the Patriotic War of 1812, such revered shrines as the Vladimir and Iversk icons of the Mother of God were taken out of the monastery for a popular prayer for the protection of the Russian land. September 12, 1812 there was a battle near the monastery walls. After that event the French occupied the monastery. Thanks to the miraculous occasion that forever linked the names of the Russian elder and viceroy of Italy, the stepson of Napoleon Eugene de Beauharnais, the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery was saved from devastation.

After the war of 1812, the monastery was restored, including with generous royal donations. The monastery was visited by Nicholas I and Alexander II.

In 1919, shortly after the revolution, the monastery was closed. In Soviet times, various institutions were located in the monastery: military units, a sanatorium, a museum.

 Since 1995, the monastery is being reborn. Nowadays, monastery temples, the palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, belfries, fortress walls and towers have been restored.

The white-stone Nativity Cathedral of the Savvinsky Monastery belongs to the few preserved monuments of early Moscow architecture. The early layer of frescoes was written by the masters of the circle of St. Andrei Rublev. In the XVI century, a chapel in honor of St. Sabbas was attached to the cathedral from the south.

The gate Trinity Church (originally the Church of Sergius) is considered the last tent Russian church, which was built in the 17th century. The reason of it is Patriarch Nikon, who banned the construction of such churches in 1652 (as they do not correspond to Byzantine
traditions). The church is small in size and has excellent acoustics. The basement (ground floor) is constructed in such a way, that makes only one Nativity cathedral visible from the depth of the Trinity Church. With each step, the cathedral gradually grows in size and approaches.

There is a misconception that the building of the Transfiguration Church was built at the expense of Princess Sophia in memory of her stay in the monastery during the Moscow uprising of 1682. In fact, the church was erected half a century earlier, and its restructuring was associated with the promise of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to arrange a large carved iconostasis in the church. Rebuilding was carried out at the end of the 17th century at the expense of the monastery itself. Multicolor tiled window frames, topped with double-headed eagles, are of particular interest.

A small warm temple of Alexy, the man of God, is built inside the Red Tower of the monastery, which got its name because of its beautiful and original decoration. The temple is located above the eastern Holy Gate, which used to be opened exclusively for the entrance of the king, the Patriarch and noble worshipers. The temple has not yet been restored.

The Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery is located in the city of Istra, Moscow region, it was founded in 1656 by Patriarch Nikon.

For all Christians, Jerusalem is the Holy Land, the blessed place where Jesus Christ was born, lived and preached. Therefore, the monastery, the idea of which was to recreate the image of the Holy Land with the exact likeness of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, is a unique phenomenon.

 “Russian Palestine”

The construction of "Russian Palestine" was intended to emphasize the increased importance of Russia as the heiress of Byzantine Empire, the bastion of world Orthodoxy, and to introduce Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich as the second emperor Konstantin. Then the concept of "Jerusalem" was perceived not only as a geographical point, but also as a symbol that can be assigned to the religious capital.

First of all, it was necessary to make a verified plan in order not only to build copies of the Holy Land points, but also to arrange them correctly. Patriarch Nikon sent the priest of the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Monastery (present Lavra) to Hieromonk Arseny (Sukhanov) to Palestine, who measured the distance between the shrines with archery shots. 

The monastic buildings were being built on the territory of the village Redkino, and the former lands of the boyar Vasily Sheremetev, Prince Alexei Trubetskoy and stolnik Roman Boborykin were added to the future monastery. The surroundings underwent a complete redevelopment: a forest was cut down, a hill was filled and fortified. The former names have changed to new ones from the Gospel texts.

The first wooden Resurrection Church was built in the year the monastery was built; Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was at its sanctification a year later. He baptized the Resurrection Monastery New Jerusalem.

The monastery quickly turned into a large landowner: in different districts, patrimonial lands were acquired for it, for the most part of which the king issued letters of commendation.

The 17^th century glorified the monastery with a library based on the personal book collection of Patriarch Nikon and translated editions. Also a music and poetry school, that continued the traditions of Polish-Ukrainian spiritual songs, appeared there.

The end of the 17^th century was the time of devastation and restoration for the monastery. By dividing the patriarchal patrimony of the Iversky and Krestovoy monasteries, their lands returned, and therefore the Resurrection monastery lost funds to continue construction. It was renewed on the board of Fedor Alekseevich.

Emperor Peter I reduced the staff of monks and obliged the monastery to supply the state with horses, fodder and artisans from among the monastic peasants. Elisabeth of Russia )also known as Elizabeth Petrovna), however, took New Jerusalem under the patronage, bestowing upon it new lands and allocating money to repair the cathedral. Before the secularization of church lands in 1764, under Catherine II, the monastery owned 14 thousand peasants and 22 thousand acres of land. After secularization, all peasants became state (or economic), and land ownership was reduced to 30 acres.

A small amount was allocated for the maintenance of New Jerusalem, but the situation was corrected by the income from pilgrimage and from renting out the Moscow monastery courtyard. The development of the pilgrimage was facilitated by the laying of the Moscow-Vindava railway line. By the beginning of the 20th century, about 35 thousand people visited the monastery annually.

After the revolution of 1917, the Soviet authorities closed the monastery, nationalized its property and transferred the most valuable items from the sacristy of the Resurrection Cathedral to the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin. Since 1921, two museums have been housed within the walls of the monastery, subsequently merged into the State Art and Historical Museum.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Resurrection Cathedral was blown up by the Nazis; many architectural monuments were destroyed. It’s interesting, that information about the destruction in the New Jerusalem appeared in the documents of the Nuremberg trials, since the monastery was considered an object of cultural heritage. After the war, the most important buildings were restored, and the museum resumed work only by the end of the 50s.

The New Jerusalem Jerusalem Resurrection Monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994. In 2015, the museum was moved from the monastery to the next new

In Russia, it is difficult to find a place that is compared to the New Jerusalem Monastery in the number of common Christian holy places.

Resurrection Cathedral was built in the image of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, founded by Queen Helen in the IV century. The layout of the individual rooms also matches for the Jerusalem holy place. A distinctive feature of the cathedral is a unique architectural ceramic in the interiors and facades. Tiles have no analogues in Russian architecture.

By the end of the XVII century, there were 14 chapels in the cathedral. In the XVIII-XIX centuries, 15 more aisles were equipped.

Aisles of the Passion of the Lord

The churches behind the main altar of the Resurrection Cathedral, organized by Patriarch Nikon in accordance with the originals in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, are dedicated to the Passion of Christ. There is a white-stone plate with the text of the so-called stone guide in each aisle on the southern. They were established in the first half of the 1680s and cite “Proskinarium, giving pilgrims the opportunity to compare the holy places there and here”.

The northern aisle is the Church of Title Writing. The central aisle is dedicated to the separation of the Savior’s robe. The third aisle is marked on the iconostasis frieze as “The church in the place where were the warriors fighting with Christ and making dirty tricks to Him”.

The northern aisle is the Church of Title Writing. The central aisle is dedicated to the separation of the Savior’s robe. The third aisle is marked on the iconostasis frieze as “The church in the place where were the warriors fighting with Christ and making dirty tricks to Him”.

Golgotha Church

Golgotha is a small hill near Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was crucified. Translated from Hebrew as "frontal place". The Golgotha Church was sanctified by Patriarch Nikon in honor of the Exaltation of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord. There is a flat stony slope (elevation) with three round depressions, indicating the place of the crucifixion of the Messiah, in its northern part.

The cypress Cross, brought by request of Patriarch Nikon from the Holy Land, was installed in the measure of the Holy Cross in the depths of the church. The most holy feet of the Savior are myrrh-streaming. The most holy feet of the Savior are myrrh-streaming.

The iconostasis dates from the XVIII century. Initially, it had 20 icons on the theme of the Passion of Christ, made in the workshop of Sergei Goryainov in Moscow. The prayer of the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane is depicted on the Royal Doors.

 

Among the most honored shrines of the New Jerusalem you can find the icon “The Lord Almighty with the holy Hierarch Philip and His Holiness Patriarch Nikon”. This image was written in 1657 in memory of the transfer to Moscow of the relics of St. Philip, Metropolitan bishop of Moscow.

Empty Tomb with rotunda

The main holy place of the Christian world is the Empty Tomb (the Tomb of Jesus), where Jesus Christ was buried after the crucifixion. On the third day Jesus Christ was resurrected there. In “Russian Palestine”, as in Jerusalem, it is installed inside a white-stone chapel (Cuvuklia), located west of Golgotha.

There is the Aisle of the Angel, where a rounded stone lies, at the entrance to Kouvukliya (from the Greek “peace”, “bedchamber”) The size of the stone matches for the Jerusalem stone in the XVII century.

The Aisle of Angles is followed by the cabe of the Holy Empty Tomb, repeating the tomb where Jesus’s Body was buried; the burial bed stands along the north wall, the bed is covered with the shroud. The cave is framed by a tiled iconostasis, reflecting the value of St. Den as the altar, and the burial bed of the Savior as the throne and altar on which the Divine Liturgy is celebrated in Jerusalem.

Kouvukliya is surrounded by columns of the rotunda.

Aisle of the Beheading of John the Baptist

The inscription between the tiers of the iconostasis of the aisle of John the Baptist indicates a prototype in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: "The Church of St. John the Baptist under Holy Golgotha, hollowed out in stone”. Two burials are connected with this place: the forefather Adam and the high priest Melchizedek - the first king of Jerusalem.

Aisle of Saint Michael the Archangel and other heavenly forces of Bodiless Powers

Aisle of the Saint Michael the Archangel is located on the right side from the entrance to the Resurrection Cathedral; it preserved a tiled iconostasis of the XVII century. An iconi with an exact list of the miraculous image of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God (made, as the inscription says, in 1736) was installed in the aisle in front of the iconostasis

The prototype of the church of Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helena served as a temple, which was built at the place where the Life-giving Cross of the Lord was found in the Holy Land.

Even under Patriarch Nikon, the Life-Giving Source was opened at the point reproducing the place where the Cross was found. To approach it, it is necessary to descend the narrow staircase 33 steps long, go around the copper iconostasis and go even lower into the chapel of the martyr Kyriak. Well is located on the right. Holy water can be gathered in the chapel at the entrance to the church.

The place for the construction “church with a refectory of warm stone and service according to the order of Jerusalem” at the back wall of the Resurrection Cathedral was indicated by princess Sofia Alekseevna.

A semblance of the Bethlehem den and a manger was built on the first floor of the Church of the Nativity of Christ.

The Gate Church of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem was built simultaneously with the fortress wall above the Holy Gates.

The gate of the church matches for the Church of the Nativity of Christ, which emphasizes the link between the coming of the Savior to the world and His coming to Jerusalem to inevitable death for the atonement of the sins of mankind.

There are a cross and a wooden platform on the bank of the Jordan (Istra River). Water prayers are held, and on the day of the Epiphany a great blessing of water takes place in the image of the blessing of water in the Jordan of Jerusalem. The water in Istra freezes in winter rarely, because the current of the river is fast and strong, and even during the Soviet years, on Epiphany night people went to Jordan.

There is a belief that at about half past one in the morning the river stops for a few minutes.

The hill, rising to the east of New Jerusalem, is named according to the map of the Holy Land, Eleon. Eleon Mount, or the Mount of Olives, stretches from north to south against the east wall of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is so named because since ancient times it was abundantly planted with olives. At the Mount of Olives, the Savior delivered a sermon, and He ascended there.

Here Patriarch Nikon hoisted a cross indicating the place of the Ascension of the Lord.

Garden of Gethsemane is the valley at the foot of the Mount of Olives ("Gethsemane" literally translated as "Oilseed Press"). There was a prayer of Jesus Christ on the night of the arrest. The Savior and His disciples often visited this place, which helped Judas to easily discover the Son of God. Nowadays the Catholic Church of All Nations stands in Jerusalem.

The Gethsemane Garden of the New Jerusalem Monastery is divided into areas that were saturated with channels in ancient times. They formed an island, and today they are barely noticeable. There is a skete, where the deposed Patriarch Nikon lived for six yearsm on the islans. The skete is an example of a typical 17th century residential building.

The revered holy place of the skete is a list of the icon of the Mother of God "Three-armed", written in the Khilandar monastery on Mount Athos.

There is another source - “The Storehouse of Samaritan Women” on the northern slope of the monastery hill. It’s the reminiscent of the conversation between Christ and the Samaritan woman, the Lord told her: “Whoever drinks the water that I give him will not thirst for ever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a source of water flowing into life everlasting” (Joannes. 4, 14).