When, with the advent of perestroika, the churches and territories of former monasteries began to be returned, many difficulties associated with the eviction of those who settled there during the years of socialism had to be overcome. Sometimes, perseverance and even courage were needed for this. It was these qualities that were demanded by the abbot of the Vladimir Christmas monastery, hegumen Kirill, because he had to deal with the all-powerful organization of the KGB, which for many years was located in the monastery premises. But first things first.
The main monastery of Ancient Russia
One of the oldest in the country, the Vladimir Mother of God-Christmas Monastery, before the creation of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in 1337, was the main center of monasticism in North-Eastern Russia. From the oldest chronicles, it is known that it was founded at the turn of the XII and XIII centuries by the Vladimir prince, the tenth son of Yuri Dolgoruky - Vsevolod Yurievich, who received the nickname Big Nest for many children born to him (12 people).
It is generally accepted that the Virgin Mary Nativity Monastery in Vladimir originates from the day the stone church of the Nativity was laid in it. This event occurred, as is clear from the oldest manuscript, called the "Lavrentievsky Chronicle", in August 1191 in the presence of the Grand Duke and his entire entourage.
Grand Duchy of Patronage
When, after the church, a man’s monastery appeared, Vsevolod Yurievich patronized him in every possible way, having assigned many villages and lands to the brethren for eternal possession. In addition, the prince took care of the organization of the inner life of the monastery. With his direct participation, the dormitory was established in the monastery from the very first days - an order in which none of the inhabitants had personal property, and all property was in collective possession. The bishops of Simon and Mitrofan were successively assigned to them by the abbots of the monastery.
Having received such a glorious beginning, in the following centuries the Theotokos-Nativity Monastery actively developed and strengthened its spiritual and material positions. It is known that after the Tatar invasion forced the Russian metropolitans to move their chair from the devastated Kiev to the city of Vladimir, they chose the Nativity Monastery as their place of residence, which gave it the status of a cathedral. As a result, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the monastery was considered one of the first in the state.
Invasion of Batu Khan
However, in the history of the monastery there were also bitter pages, the memory of which fills the heart with sorrow. In 1237, the city of Vladimir was invaded by countless hordes of Batu Khan. In the fire of fire, numerous temples and towers perished. Most of the inhabitants of the city were killed or driven into slavery.
The Mother of God-Nativity Monastery did not pass the trouble. At the hands of the nomads, martyrdom, which was ruled by him in those years, Archimandrite Pachomius and the whole brethren, was accepted. Numerous buildings erected over the past years, the Tatars sacked and put to fire. When the smoke of the conflagration dissipated, and the bodies of the monks and their abbot were buried, we had to restart the arrangement of the monastery life.
The monastery is the burial place of Alexander Nevsky
In the subsequent period, a vivid historical event was the burial of the Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, who died in 1263 in Gorodets, where he stopped, returning from the Horde. His body was placed in a crypt arranged in the monastery’s Christmas church. Thanks to this, after the transfer of the princely throne from Vladimir to Moscow (1325), the Theotokos-Nativity Monastery regularly received from the rulers of Russia, who wanted to honor the memory of their illustrious ancestor, generous contributions. This served as an aid to its further development and prosperity.
The participation of the abbots of the monastery in public affairs
The status of the monastery has steadily increased, and as a result, in 1598, when the issue of electing the new sovereign instead of the late Fedor Ioannovich was being decided, his abbot Varlaam was drafted to Moscow and became one of the signatories of the letter, which opened the way for Boris Godunov to reign.
The next abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Isaiah, also went down in history. During the Time of Troubles, he managed to serve False Dmitry I, becoming in 1605 his confessor, and gain the appreciation of the first of the Romanovs - Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, putting his signature on a letter of election. When, in June 1619, a ceremony was held at the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin to place Metropolitan Filaret (Romanov), the father of the sovereign, chosen six years ago, on the patriarchal throne, then Archimandrite Isaiah was among its main participants.
Lowering the status of a monastery
In the 16th century, the Mother of God-Nativity Monastery was forced to relinquish its dominant position among other Russian monasteries, which he held until then. In 1561, a decree was issued by Tsar Ivan the Terrible that from now on, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius should be considered the main among Russian monasteries . Thus, the Vladimir monastery became a lower rank and took second place.
This status remained with him until the advent of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, which, according to the decree of Peter I, replaced him in third position. However, this gave the monks the opportunity to once again practice one of the most important Christian virtues - humility.
During the reign of the pious Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the Vladimir Diocese was formed, and the Nativity Monastery became the residence of its head - Metropolitan Plato. As a metropolitan residence, it existed until 1789, when the Vladimir-Suzdal diocese was created, and all subsequent lords placed their residences in Suzdal.
The loss of an architectural monument
In the next century, and more precisely in 1869, the monastery lost one of its main attractions - the ancient, built in the pre-Mongol period, Christmas Church. The fact is that several years before this, the monastery was visited by Sovereign Alexander II and, examining it, noticed that the church clearly needed restoration.
It would seem that good intentions, but they, as you know, paved the road to hell. As a result, the church, once resisted by the Tatar horde, was powerless against human stupidity. There was an excessively zealous official who ordered to demolish her, since she had raised a gripe with the highest person, and to build a new one in the vacated place. When the sovereign found out about this, then nothing could be corrected.
Apocalypse of the 20th century
After the October coup, the monastery for many years became the place where the Cheka, and then the OGPU, the NKVD and finally the KGB, successively replaced each other. Here was the building of the pre-trial detention center. During the period of Stalinist repression, from the twenties to the mid-fifties, mass shootings and burials of victims of terror were carried out behind strong monastery walls. The horrors of the invasion of Batu, who visited here seven hundred years ago, fade in comparison with the bloody nightmare that the victorious people arranged for themselves.
Return to square one
During the years of perestroika, the monasteries of Vladimir, like other monasteries of Russia, began the difficult path of revival. In 1991, the churches and the territory of the Theotokos-Nativity Monastery were returned, displacing the KGB department located there. The newly formed monastery brethren, headed by Hegumen Kirill (Surkov), did a great and difficult job to restore what was destroyed or rebuilt in the years of the totalitarian regime in such a way that it lost its historical appearance.
In this difficult matter, the monks were assisted by both public organizations of the city and ordinary lay people, who were rooting for shamed shrines. The great merit of the abbot Kirill, the zealous master and wise spiritual guide of the monks, was the result of many years of work being successful and the monastic life was back on track.