In the middle of the sixteenth century, Russia was particularly keen on fighting its aggressive neighbor, the Kazan Khanate. A reliable support base was required to conduct military operations, and for this purpose, in 1551, shortly before Ivan the Terrible took Kazan, the fortress city of Sviyazhsk was founded. A place for him was chosen at the mouth of the Sviyaga River. Soon the city grew and became a district center, and in 1555 a monastic monastery was founded in it, which later became known as the Assumption Monastery of Sviyazhsky .
The foundation of the Kazan diocese and monastery
The year of foundation of the monastery was marked by another important event in the life of the region - the establishment of the Kazan diocese. This was made possible thanks to the glorious victories of Russian weapons, which put an end to the domination of the Tatar khans on the Volga shores. In this regard, the monastery founded here was to become a center of spiritual, educational and missionary activity. For two centuries, his envoys brought the light of Orthodoxy throughout the Middle Volga.
The founder of the monastery and its first rector was Archimandrite German (Sadyrev-Polev). Under his rule, the monastery grew and gained strength. Times were very turbulent then. The Tatars defeated near Kazan scattered around the district and, uniting in gangs, raided the surrounding villages. More than once, the inhabitants of the monastery had to interrupt their prayers and take up arms.
The Great Ascetic Archimandrite Herman
The path of pastoral ministry followed by Archimandrite Herman is very remarkable. Leaving with time the Sviyazhsky monastery founded by him, he headed the whole Kazan diocese, becoming its second archbishop. In 1566, at the behest of Ivan the Terrible, he arrived in Moscow, where he was asked to ascend to the Moscow Metropolitan Department instead of Metropolitan Philip, who had fallen into royal disgrace.
However, he refused such high honor and, taking the side of the disgraced bishop, began to denounce the lawlessness committed by the tsarist guardsmen. Removed soon from the palace, the archimandrite completed his earthly journey in 1567. The circumstances of his death have not yet been clarified. According to one version, he was killed, and according to another, he died during the plague.
After his death, the first abbot of the monastery was glorified in the face of saints, and since 1592 his relics became the main shrine of the monastery. In the books of the Assumption Cathedral, where they rested, one could read many notes testifying to the miracles that they had shown through the prayers of the parishioners and the monks themselves.
The heyday of the monastery
The heyday of the monastery should be considered the XVI-XVIII centuries. During these two centuries, the Sviyazhsky monastery was the richest in the entire Middle Volga and was even among the twenty most prosperous in Russia. No wonder his archimandrite was considered the seventh in importance in the state. By the middle of the 18th century, 7200 male peasants lived and worked on the lands belonging to the monastery. As many of them belonged to all the other monasteries of the Kazan diocese combined.
Such a detail is also curious: the Sviyazhsky monastery had a printing house, in which liturgical books began to be printed earlier than the first printer Ivan Fedorov began to do in Moscow. Their products in many varied across the country. When in 1764 a monastic reform was carried out in the Russian Empire, the Sviyazhsky Virgin Assumption Monastery was ranked among the first class, which was considered the highest. Only one of all the monasteries of the Kazan diocese was awarded this honor. Only forty-two years later, the Bogoroditsky monastery in Kazan earned such a distinction.
The era of secularization of church lands
With the aforementioned reform carried out by Catherine II, the decline of the formerly rich and flourishing monastery began. In many respects, the role of the economic decline observed in this period of the city of Sviyazhsk, and the impoverishment of the population caused by it, played a role. However, the main reason was the government's secularization of monastic lands.
In the era of her reign, Catherine II pursued a policy aimed at depriving the church of the opportunity to influence state affairs. One of the ways to achieve this goal was to reduce the economic standard of living of temples and monasteries. To this end, a manifesto was issued on February 24, 1764, according to which all church lands passed into state ownership.
Years of the decline of the monastery and the beginning of the revolution
Deprived of the main source of income in this way, the Sviyazhsky Assumption Monastery gradually began to lose ground. It is enough to say that the number of its inhabitants, which once exceeded one hundred monks and novices, by the beginning of the 20th century had decreased to twenty-five, and the income level had become lower than in other monasteries of the Kazan diocese.
The years following the revolution brought with it many troubles of the entire Russian Orthodox Church. The Sviyazhsky monastery was no exception. His last abbot, Bishop Ambrose (Gudko), fell victim to an outrageous crowd of soldiers. After many years, when the country finally came to its senses from atheistic madness, he was counted among the saints, and the world recognized him as the new martyr of Ambrose.
The period of atheistic rampant
During the reign of the atheistic authorities, the city of Sviyazhsk became a continuous camp zone. The monastery buildings and the churches adjacent to them were looted, and the cancer with the incorrupt relics of the Monk Herman was opened and desecrated. For many years, a colony for juvenile delinquents and a psychiatric hospital were located in the monastery itself. To top it off, after the construction of the Kuibyshev reservoir, a large area adjacent to the city was flooded, and Sviyazhsk turned into an island.
The revival of the monastery
Only with the onset of modern times, when churches began to return property that was illegally taken from her, all the buildings, which included the Sviyazhsky monastery, were returned to believers. The exception was only a small part of them, which became part of the museum-reserve. This served as fertile ground for the revival of the city itself. In the restored churches, the once interrupted church services resumed, and again the ringing of the monastery bells sailed over the Sviyaga river.
Monastery Attractions
The Holy Assumption Sviyazhsky Monastery is famous for its main attraction - the ancient Nikolskaya Church. She is the same age as the monastery, and its construction dates back to 1756. The artel of the Pskov masters led by Ivan Shiryay erected it from the carved limestone. A year later, a bell tower 43 meters high was attached to it. In the church building there is a cell in which the first abbot of the monastery once lived - Rev. Herman. From the memoirs of the former inhabitants of the monastery it is known that even before the revolution, his things were stored in it.
The nearby Assumption Cathedral was built only five years later, St. Nicholas Church. The same masters from Pskov worked on it. Some changes to it were made in the middle of the next century. To it was added the refectory and the cylinder of the drum of an octagonal section. The previously existing helmet-shaped dome was replaced by a more elegant one, in the Ukrainian Baroque style. A hundred years later, a porch was added to the building.
However, the main feature of the temple are the frescoes preserved in it from the times of Ivan the Terrible. A similar rarity exists in only one other place - in the cathedral on the territory of the Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl. Art historians note that wall paintings of this period are a rarity.
There are earlier examples, there are written a century later, but the 16th century left us a very meager legacy in this regard. In addition to its historical and artistic value, the frescoes of the cathedral also have one characteristic peculiarity peculiar to them: on the western wall, where it is customary to depict hell with all its attributes, scenes of paradise are written in the Assumption Cathedral, which in itself creates a positive mood for the viewer.
Female Compound of the Sviyazhsky Monastery
In the city, in addition to the male monastery in question, there was one more - the female Sviyazhsky John the Baptist monastery. It was also founded at the end of the 16th century. He was in the very center of Sviyazhsk near Cathedral Square. However, he soon had to endure a series of severe fires, and the natives were transferred to another place, providing them with premises belonging to the previously abolished Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
Nowadays, the nunnery has not yet been revived in its original form, but represents only the female John the Baptist courtyard of the male Sviyazhsky monastery. However, all church services are conducted in it to the extent prescribed by the Church Statute. In addition, the restoration of residential premises and the temple does not stop. Life has returned to the ancient monastery, and its hospitable walls await everyone who wants to come and plunge into the enchanting world of Orthodox antiquity.