During the years of perestroika, one of the most ancient monasteries of the Oryol land was restored. Founded in the second half of the 17th century and having survived together with Russia all the hardships and tribulations of the following centuries, it was closed and ruined during the years of the godless Bolshevik regime. The current period of national history is the time of his second birth.
Burnt cloister
The description of the history of the Holy Assumption Monastery (Oryol) begins in the middle of the 17th century, when the Epiphany mansion was located on the territory of the Oryol Fortress, surrounded by a dense ring of wooden village buildings. Honest monks lived extremely poorly, because they had neither the sovereign's salary, nor the serfs, nor the lands that they could rent out. They fed mainly on the fact that their brothers brought them sent to the world to ask for alms.
Their main trouble was the frequent fires that swept the settlement and spread to the monastery buildings. And on one of the June days of 1780, fire completely destroyed the monastery, sparing only its main cathedral, which has survived to our time. With funds collected all the same world, restoration work was begun, the leadership of which was taken on by Hieromonk Euthymius.
In a new place
Reasoning very sensibly that, remaining in the same place, the monastery would burn more than once because of its proximity to negligent Sloboda people, he decided to move it outside the fortress. After a short search, a site was selected located a mile away from the city on the banks of the Oka. There in 1684 he laid the wooden church, which was later consecrated in honor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and gave the name to the Holy Assumption Monastery, which has survived to this day in Orel. Hieromonk Euthymius himself, who had been elevated to the rank of abbot by that time, became his first rector.
The first stone temple of the monastery
Two years later, Archbishop of Kolomna and Kashirsky Nikita blessed the brethren for the construction of a stone church in the name of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And, very importantly, he backed up his words by sending the necessary funds. According to contemporaries, on the day the new church was laid, the ancient icon of the Byzantine script was delivered by procession to the Holy Assumption Monastery, glorified by many miracles revealed through it, and later became its main shrine.
The construction of the stone temple was unusually fast. At the end of 1688, he was solemnly consecrated. A little later, a multi-tier bell tower was added to the refectory, to which eight bells were cast, cast by local craftsmen. The main one weighed 80 pounds, then went 45 pounds and 20 pounds. They were supplemented by 5 small bells, during the festivities announcing the expanses of the Oka with joyful chime.
The "Golden Age" of Oryol monks
A century later, in May 1788, the Orlov Diocese was established by decree of the Holy Synod. Over the next decades, its leadership steadily contributed to the development and improvement of the monastery operating on its territory. Thanks to this, by the end of the 19th century, the monastery in honor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a very extensive complex, which included 5 operating churches, as well as a large number of various administrative and household structures.
On its territory there was an elementary school for children from low-income families, as well as an icon painting and bookbinding workshop. By that time, the territory of the monastery cemetery had been landscaped and turned into a necropolis, where prominent philanthropist and theater figure Count G.I. Chernyshev, and also the hero of the war of 1812, Baron F.K. Korf, were buried among the honorary citizens.
In this most favorable period of its history, the brethren of the Holy Assumption Monastery (Oryol), in addition to state subsidies, received income from its extensive fishing, as well as leased land donated by wealthy pilgrims. There were also their own production workshops in which they worked along with hired workers.
Twentieth Century Vandals
Immediately after the October armed coup and the coming to power of the atheistic Bolshevik government, persecution of the church began. They touched the Orthodox inhabitants of the city of Orel. The Holy Assumption Monastery was closed, and its inhabitants were expelled from their inhabited cells. Subsequently, many of them were repressed for propaganda of a religious ideology alien to the new government and joined the ranks of countless Russian new martyrs of the XX century.
As for the monastery territory and the buildings located on it, then over the next decades they were used in the most barbarous way. So, the highly artistic marble tombstones, which used to decorate the necropolis, were routed in the mid-1920s and used as a building material for the reconstruction of the dam across the Oka. Those of them, which for various reasons did not fit the builders, were simply thrown into the water.
A similar act of vandalism was committed against the former abbot's house, which was a vivid example of the architecture of the early 19th century. To equip the production facilities of the local cloth factory in it, the building was rebuilt, depriving the original appearance and turning it into a rough, faceless structure. The rest of the monastery buildings, including five temples located on its territory, were also made available to various business organizations. And over the following years, mercilessly destroyed.
In the postwar years, a children's educational colony was created on the territory of the monastery, in which for three decades teenagers who were under the age of majority but managed to come into conflict with the law were kept. Their presence also did not contribute to the preservation of what remained of the devastated cloister. As a result, by the beginning of the 80s, almost all temples were destroyed.
Innocent victim of Olympics 80
The Communists put the last point in this barbarism in 1980, when, by order of the leadership of the CPSU city committee, the very stone Assumption Church, which the ancestors erected in 1688, was demolished. Unfortunately, she was close to the route on which the Olympic flame was supposed to be carried, and the authorities considered that her appearance cast a shadow on the organizers of such a progressive event.
Rebirth of the cloister
The revival of the Assumption Monastery, like many Orthodox monasteries in Russia, began during the perestroika period. In April 1992, by decree of the city, A. G. Kislyakov, the entire territory that previously belonged to him was transferred to the Orel diocese, after which large-scale restoration work began. According to the project of architect M. B. Skorobogaty, the Assumption Church was re-built, and the miraculously preserved buildings were restored.
In 1998, the Holy Dormition Monastery (address: Oryol, Monastery Square, 3) resumed its activity after many decades of oblivion and destruction. As before, pilgrims began to come to him from all over Russia to bow to the shrines stored in its walls.
Led by Bishop Nectarios
A great merit in organizing the spiritual and economic life of the revived monastery belongs to its viceroy Bishop Nytariy (Seleznev) of Liven and Little Archangelsk, who was appointed to this post in 2012. His photo is given in the article. At the initiative of the bishop, a marble plaque was erected on the territory of the monastery in memory of a native of Orel, a famous monarchist poet and an active participant in the White Guard movement, Sergei Bekhteev.
Many pilgrims are attracted by the holy spring, over which, by order of Bishop Nektarii, a chapel was erected in honor of the Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky. Its water coming from an artesian well extending to a depth of 150 meters is stored in a special silver container and has healing properties.