Among the holy monasteries, revived after many years of desolation, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery, which was a male monastery before the revolution, resumed religious life within its walls. Today it is provided to honest nuns who seek salvation of the soul and pray for all that they have left in the world. Our long story will be about the long and arduous journey traveled by this holy monastery.
The long journey of monk Euphrosynus
According to legend, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery, which is located twenty-eight kilometers from Pskov, was founded in 1425 by the humble monk of the Snetogorsky Monastery Euphrosynus, who was named Eleazar in the world. It is known that he was very sophisticated in the law of God. From a young age, Videlibye learned to read and write in the native village, reading the Holy Scriptures, when he grew up over the years, took monastic tonsure and spent all his free time from obedience in the monastery library.
Even at the beginning of monastic service, his abbot blessed him to go overseas to Constantinople, which had not yet come under Turkish rule and was the center of world Orthodoxy - Second Rome. There he was to seek clarification from the Holy Fathers on some liturgical issues that were difficult to understand, which caused controversy among the brethren.
Having made a difficult journey and having reached the goal of his journey, the monk Euphrosynus was honored to be accepted by the Patriarch of Constantinople himself and in conversation with him clarified everything for which he was sent. Having thus fulfilled the obedience imposed on him, guarded by God, he safely returned to his monastery, where he told the brethren what he had learned overseas.
Monok's vision
After this, Euphrosynus wanted to glorify the Lord as a feat of desertification, for which, having asked for blessing from the abbot (you cannot do without it), he retired to a forest thicket near Lake Pskov, where an unnamed river was divided into two branches in the lowland. There, cutting down his wretched cell, the new-born hermit indulged in prayer and divine thought.
But it is not without reason that it is written that the lamp of faith will not hide under the cover. Everyone who craved, having left the vain world, began to flock to his dwelling, to serve the Lord. Soon, according to tradition, there was a vision for Euphrosynus. In a subtle dream, the many-wise saints - the fathers of Orthodoxy, appeared to him, commanding him to erect a temple of God in the middle of the forest and establish a monastery with him. According to their will, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery was born.
The formation of the monastery
The brethren put in a lot of effort, making up the forest and clearing the place needed for all the buildings needed by the monastery. The construction of the temple was also worth a lot of work. But the Grace of God abode with the monks in everything, and very soon between the centuries-old pines its walls rose to heaven. He was consecrated in honor of the Savior of our Lord Jesus Christ. Found at the monastery and earthly patrons who did not stint donations. Numerous buildings were erected by their brethren by the brethren and acquired an economy.
Their main concern was service to God and spiritual growth, in which they took an example from the holy fathers, who glorified the Lord with the numerous deeds of faith. Having become the rector of the monastery founded by him, Euphrosynus gained many associates, who eventually laid the foundation for new monasteries, which underwent many trials in the following centuries, but which did not disappear from the face of the earth.
The greatest shrine of the monastery was the icon of the Mother of God, which was stored within its walls, which was a gift from the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennady II. She served as an expression of the continuity that passed to the Russian church after the fall of her Byzantine sister under the Turkish scimitar.
Elder Philofy
Having walked a long and arduous journey, Euphrosynus departed to the Lord at the age of ninety-five years, having accepted before the death a schema named Eleazar. In honor of this, the Pskov Spaso-Eleazarovsky monastery founded by him and still existing is named after him. The life and ministry of the ascetic became a good grain that fell on fertile soil and increased in future generations of the holy fathers who labored in the walls of the monastery.
The most famous of them is the Elder Philofy - the first to indicate the great mission of the Russian people and their role in the fate of Orthodoxy. It was he who, after the Turks captured Constantinople, had the words that the Lord allowed the fall of the First Rome, an empire that fell into the Latin heresy, and after the Second, Byzantium, which concluded an unholy union (alliance) with the Latins, for apostasy from the true faith. Since then, all responsibility for the purity of Orthodoxy rests with Russia. She was promised by the Lord to become the Third Rome, and the Fourth will be gone.
The Spaso-Eleazarovsky monastery largely served the cause of uniting the Russian lands around Moscow, becoming their spiritual center and gathering many learned men within its walls. And again, the voice of the old man Philophius sounded throughout the country, supporting the Grand Duke of Moscow with his authority and thereby putting the reins of government in a huge state into his hands.
The further life of the holy monastery
In 1574, the main shrine of the monastery was erected - the Cathedral of the Three Saints. It was consecrated in honor of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, who once appeared in a vision to the Monk Euphrosynus and ordered to create a holy monastery on this site.
In the following years, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery (Pskov) underwent many tests . Due to the proximity of the border, he was repeatedly attacked by Poles, Lithuanians and Livonian knights. He was repeatedly ruined and plundered, but each time the Lord prayed His mercy to him through the prayers of the brethren, and monastic life was revived among the still smoking ruins.
In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky monastery was repeatedly replenished by the inhabitants of a number of other monasteries that were abolished for one reason or another. The largest number of monks came from the former Velikopustynsky-Preobrazhensky monastery and the Glinsky desert.
The deeds of the abbot of the monastery, Igumen Yuvinaly, who headed the monastery in the last pre-revolutionary period, are widely known. His tireless labors introduced old age, the number of inhabitants was significantly increased, and unprecedented grandeur was given to church services. During these years, the Grand Duchess Elisaveta Fedorovna was a frequent guest of the monastery, repeatedly making generous contributions to his treasury.
Years of oblivion and spiritual darkness
After the Bolsheviks came to power, when the imperial family accepted the martyrdom and the very foundations of faith were violated in the country, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery was abolished among other holy monasteries. Until 1925, in the Pskov region, the only active church was the monastery cathedral, from which by that time values had been withdrawn three times, supposedly to help the starving. However, it was soon closed. Many of the inhabitants of the monastery were shot without trial. In 1918 they were put on carts and taken to the forest. None of them returned alive.
Attempts to rebuild the monastery in a secular fashion
The authorities repeatedly tried to find application for the monastery buildings, but each time ended in failure. In the late twenties, the devastated monastery was handed over to one of the Pskov institutes, but, failing to adapt to classes in dilapidated rooms, students and teachers soon left it.
The organization of exemplary agricultural production in the monastery also ingloriously ended - nothing of the planted stubbornly wished to grow. After this, the former monastery changed owners several times, each time more and more destroyed. In a short time, the new authorities destroyed what was created by the works of monks for many centuries.
Return to the bosom of the church
After many decades of oblivion, the monastery was reborn to life at the turn of the new century, but now as a female monastery. In May 2000, the bishop’s service was first performed in his temple, and it marked the beginning of a new history of the shrine, which was shamed but returned to the people. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, the nun Elisaveta (Belyaeva), who was elevated five years later to the rank of hegumen, was appointed abbess in the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Convent.
The restoration of the monastery was very large, since at the time of his return to the fold of the church from all the previous buildings there remained only the dilapidated Cathedral of the Three Saints, the fraternal corps, which was also in disrepair, and individual fragments of the stone fence.
In those years, Academician D.D. Likhachev, who personally approached the Minister of Culture with a request to allocate funds for repairs and to attract highly qualified specialists to this. Thanks to his efforts and the help of both individual citizens and a number of public organizations, it was possible to quickly restore what was still to be restored and restore the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Convent to people.
Reviews of pilgrims and tourists
With the revival of monastic service in the monastery, thousands of believers, those with a longing for spiritual roots, who from time immemorial nourished the soul of the Russian people, were drawn to it. The pilgrimage to the Spaso-Eleazarovsky nunnery is becoming more and more massive every year. People go to bow to his shrines, among which the main place is occupied by the miraculous theotokos icons “Feodorovskaya” and “Tsaregradskaya”, as well as “Savior Eleazarovsky”.
Many believers and those who are still just looking for their way to the church after visiting a monastery leave notes in a book specially designed for this purpose or share their impressions on Internet sites. Most of them write about their excitement from contact with the living history of Russia, the impression of which becomes brighter thanks to excursions organized by the pilgrimage service of the monastery.
Many reviews note the professionalism of guides introducing the history of the monastery to those who arrived and those events of the bygone past, of which she became witnesses and participants. The main thing that goes through the red thread in the records of most pilgrims is gratitude to all those who, through their labor, revived this priceless shrine of Russian Orthodoxy.