This monastery is one of the oldest on Russian soil. The exact date of its foundation is unknown, and the architecture is unique. Of course, this is a monument of history and architecture, the cultural heritage of the nation.
In addition to all this, the Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery is a unique place in which every inch of the earth is saturated with a special energy, prayed for centuries. Everything here is saturated with spirituality. This is precisely the main value and the very meaning of its existence.
What kind of place is it?
Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery of the Moscow Diocese is an active monastery for women. Now this place has a very high official status, it is stavropegic. This means that the monastery is under the jurisdiction of the patriarch, who is directly involved in the needs, interests and, in general, in the life of the monastery.
However, this was not always the case. The Pokrovsky Khotkov stavropegic nunnery has acquired its current high hierarchical status recently. It happened in 1992. In pre-revolutionary times, that is, until 1918, the monastery was listed in the church registers as a regular monastery. This means that the institution belonged to the third class of the cadastre, that is, it did not have special rights or privileges.
How old is this monastery?
When exactly the Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery was founded is unknown. The earliest mention of this monastery, which historians managed to find in the annals, dates back to the beginning of the XIV century, to 1308.
Earlier references to this place in written sources could not be found. However, at the time of recording, the monastery already existed, was fully functioning and was a fairly large center, playing an important role in local life. Accordingly, it was founded no later than the middle of the XIII century or even earlier.
Was this abode always female?
Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery did not always function as a female monastery. Initially, like many other similar places located in the central European part of Russia, it was arranged according to a mixed type. This means that within the walls of the monastery shearing was taken by both women and men.
For example, the place where the father and mother of Sergius of Radonezh took tonsure is precisely the Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery. The history of the monastery, of course, is not limited to the names of these pious people ranked as saints. Like any of the old monasteries, it had different times, and local stones are remembered not so little. But unfortunately, they can’t tell.
How did the monastery gain material prosperity?
Like the whole Sergiev Posad district, the monastery has experienced a lot over the past centuries. These are poverty, wealth, deserts, and, conversely, a significant number of people. The ancient walls saw different things, however, like the local villages that grew to a large settlement.
The cloister was not always a privileged high status place, rich or prosperous. For a long time the monastery vegetated in poverty. The financial situation of the monastery was somewhat strengthened at the beginning of the XVI century. In 1506, the Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery received the right to the so-called ruga from the Grand Duchy. This is a kind of monetary allowance, content that has a certain periodicity, that is, not a one-time subsidy.
At this moment, only 17 people lived in the walls of the monastery. How many of them were men, and how many women are unknown. But we can assume that there were more nuns, since from the moment of acquiring a friend, the monastery became a female for a short time.
How was the monastic story?
Sergiev Posad, Khotkovo and other villages of this area, from which there are not even any names, developed around the churches and monasteries standing here. Not every local temple was large or prosperous. Most of them vegetated in poverty, could not boast of either the number of parishioners or the number of clergy.
Until the beginning of the 16th century, the convent in the Moscow region, which was very privileged nowadays, known as Pokrovsky Khotkov, was in distress.
Between 1506, which became a turning point for the state of affairs in this monastery, and 1544, the monastery ceases to be mixed and becomes exclusively female. Of course, there is no exact date, since the transition from one state to another was gradual and natural. In other words, it happened. No one specifically made any decisions, did not sign decrees, or somehow otherwise did not affect the type of device of this monastery. Or rather, the choice of whether it will be male or female. A decree prohibiting cohabitation in one territory was issued at the beginning of the 16th century, however, the transition to a certain type was not carried out overnight, but gradually.
The year 1544 turned out to be extremely important in the history of the monastery. He was interested in John IV Vasilievich. Ivan the Terrible by a special decree transferred the monastery to the jurisdiction and under the care of the Trinity Monastery. Although some historians believe that the transformation from an “independent unit” to a “subordinate object” could hardly have a positive effect on its development, the facts suggest the opposite.
At that moment, when the monastery passed to the Trinity Monastery, there was only one wooden church on the territory - Pokrovskaya. But according to the records, already in 1580, another wooden church - the Nikolskaya Church - found the Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery. St. Nicholas Cathedral, which people from all over the world come to admire today, will subsequently grow out of this chopped church.
By the eighteenth century, about 40 nuns lived on the territory of a very large and rebuilt monastery, not counting the novices just getting ready for tonsure. This is a lot for the monastery of those times. Of course, this development could not have its consequences, which occurred in 1764. The cloister regained its independence, having come out of the care of the Trinity Monastery.
By the beginning of the next century, XIX, the number of nuns in the monastery exceeded four hundred. Significant construction was going on at the same time, and the monastery territory was expanding. Changed in the century before last and the conditions in which the nuns lived. The monastery gradually turned into a "special" one. This means that each shearer had her own cell, separate from the others.
Of course, the economy grew stronger and developed. Goods from the monastery courtyard were in great demand and were sold very quickly at markets and fairs, which replenished the treasury and allowed the monastery to develop.
By the beginning of the last century, by 1913, the following were functioning at the monastery:
- school for 70 students;
- almshouse;
- a small hospital with a hospital for 10 beds;
- icon painting art workshop.
All this was founded, of course, not in the last century, but earlier. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, these objects at the cloister already flourished with might and main and were extremely in demand.
The story of the women's monastery, known before the revolution not only at Sergiev Posad, Khotkovo, but also beyond, in 1922, was interrupted. The monastery was closed and looted.
How are things today?
Already in 1989, the monastery again opened its doors and began to recover surprisingly quickly. Now the monastery has not only a strong economy and special status, with it function:
- a boarding house for girls;
- theology courses;
- Sunday School.
Of course, this is not the limit for the development of the monastery. Moreover, the monastery has not yet been restored at the level at which it remained until the revolutionary years.
When did the first stone temple appear in the monastery?
The modern Sergiev Posad region is least of all reminiscent of a rural settlement. There are excellent automobile roads, residential complexes, large network markets and other infrastructure objects typical for developed cities. But this was not always the case.
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, stone structures were a rarity. Not every monastery could afford such a temple. It cost a lot of money, which in the Orthodox monasteries located in the Russian outback was not always enough for the most necessary. Wealthy philanthropists or noble parishioners visited far from every monastery courtyard.
The merchants, namely with the funds of this estate built most of the churches in Russian cities, preferred to make donations to the so-called "house" churches, or to build them close to their own houses.
The Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery, whose relics and shrines, although they had important spiritual significance, was not of particular interest to merchants and patrons of art from other classes. Probably, for this reason, the first stone temple appeared here quite late, in the middle of the XVII century. It was the Intercession Church, rebuilt. Paid the construction of the temple Vasily Fedorovich Yanov. His name forever entered the history of the monastery, because finding your own stone temple was an extremely significant and important event for any monastery.
Vasily Yanov was a steward, belonged to an ancient boyar family. This man acted as patriarch solicitor and for one guided reason he became interested in Pokrovskaya monastery and its needs.
The temple was built in record time for those times, between 1644 and 1648. It became subsequently the first architectural landmark of the monastery, the walls of which flow the river Page. In Khotkovo, as, incidentally, in Posad at that time, there was no more, more beautiful and more magnificent church. It is not surprising that people gathered from all over the district to admire or at least look out of the corner of this building at the monastery courtyard.
What is interesting about monastery architecture?
Pokrovsky Khotkov Monastery, whose architecture is a national cultural heritage, has a surprisingly convenient and simple, intuitive layout of buildings. This is not a characteristic feature of the ancient Orthodox monastery monastery of Russia.
The whole complex is focused on the current Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Which should not be surprising, given the fact that for a long time Pokrovskaya monastery was actually part of the Trinity Monastery. The layout is generally longitudinal, axial. There is a “main street” - a wide tract running from the main temple through the Holy Gates to the monastery. Above the gate, of course, a small church is built. Such temples are called gateways. It is consecrated in the name of the Nativity of John the Baptist.
The whole territory is surrounded by a beautiful stone wall with four small towers, erected in 1781. Until the middle of the century before last, there was a through passage through the Pokrovsky cloister, but in 1834, in the center of the territory, literally on the road, the four-tier bell tower “with a fashionable element at that time - the clock” grew up. Of course, the path had to be re-laid, to bypass the monastery, which was done. A new road was opened in 1851. Now on the site of the old bypass tract is a street called Cooperative. The bell tower did not reach our days, it was demolished in the 30s of the past century.
Particularly noteworthy is the Intercession Cathedral. Its uniqueness is how organically the building was rebuilt from the first stone temple of the monastery. It is not possible to notice the presence of any transitions, inconsistencies, imbalances or complain about the lack of harmony. Meanwhile, temples belong to different architectural styles. Unfortunately, the name of the architect, who so brilliantly carried out the expansion and reconstruction of the stone Church of the Intercession in the cathedral, is unknown.
Corps with cells were neatly lined along the south wall. They are so precisely merged into one line that somehow resemble army barracks lurking outside the parade ground.
St. Nicholas Cathedral is strikingly different from the general laconic classicism of the monastery’s internal structures. This temple seems to challenge other buildings with its deliberate, lush Byzantine architecture. In every sense, this is the Russian church. Such as can be seen in every provincial old city.
But then again, a paradox. St. Nicholas Cathedral, the one that can be seen today, is externally designed in the Russian-Byzantine style architectural direction. It is characteristic of the merchant churches of the late XVI mid-XVII centuries, so admiring foreign tourists. But the temple was built at the very beginning of the last century by order of Mother Superior Filareta II. The author of the architectural project was Alexander Latkov.
Unfortunately, this building is boldly swept from the face of the earth by the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker with chapels consecrated in the name of Peter and Paul. According to local legend, one of the holy fools, who were many near the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, seeing the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker disappear, predicted that the monastery would soon be closed and desecrated in the form of punishment for the demolition of the temple.
Where are the relics and relics?
That Pokrovsky Cathedral, which can be seen within the walls of the monastery today, was built between 1812 and 1816. Or rather, it was rebuilt from the very first stone temple. Admire the inhabitants of the surrounding villages in the XVII century.
The cathedral is a fundamental, very solid, and even squat outwardly, structure that is typical of the classicist style. It is crowned with five chapters, and the facade is decorated with ribbon rustics and porticoes. It is in this temple that the relics of the Monks Cyril and Mary, the parents of Sergius of Radonezh and other significant relics are sometimes brought to the monastery for worship, for example, miraculous icons.
The relics of the Intercession Monastery are only the relics of the parents of St. Sergius of Radonezh, ranked as saints. There are no other relics in this monastery.
Where is this monastery located?
It is located in the suburbs. Or rather - in the small town of Khotkovo, located in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region, on the cooperative street, the serial number of the building is 2. This is a working monastery, but its territory is almost always accessible for both pilgrims and ordinary tourists.
Sightseeing local sights, wandering around the alleys of the monastery, trying to imagine - how, how and where it was centuries ago and, of course, you can bow to the holy relics of father and mother Sergius of Radonezh in any season, daily and regardless of weather conditions. Temples plundered in the past century do not have frescoes and images requiring special temperature conditions to ensure their preservation. Therefore, you can come to Khotkovo at any convenient day. The monastery is open to visitors from six in the morning until nine in the evening.
Many of those who seek to see this place make one mistake. First they examine the Lavra, and from there they go to the Pokrovsky monastery. Of course, there is nothing particularly reprehensible in this order of visits, but this is a violation of the tradition established among pilgrims.
It is customary for the faithful to first bow to the relics of Saints Cyril and Mary, the father and mother of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and only after that go on foot to the Lavra, passing under the arch of the Holy Gates. The order adopted among the pilgrims should not be violated, if only because moving against the direction of the flow of people is not entirely convenient, not to mention that this is a manifestation of disrespect.