The Pechenga Monastery (; ; ) is and has been for many centuries the northernmost

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

in the world. It was founded in 1533 at the influx of the

Pechenga River The Pechenga (, ) is a river in Murmansk Oblast, Russia (Kola Peninsula). It is the namesake for the Pechenga settlement, Pechenga Monastery and the Pechenga District. The river discharges into the Pechenga Bay by the Barents Sea coast. The L ...

into the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...

, 135 km west of modern

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

, by St. Tryphon, a monk from

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...

. Inspired by the model of the Solovki, Tryphon wished to convert the local

Skolts The Skolt Sámi or Skolts are a Sámi people, Sámi ethnic group. They currently live in and around the villages of Sevettijärvi, Keväjärvi, Nellim in the municipality of Inari, Finland, Inari, at several places in the Murmansk Oblast and in t ...

to Christianity and to demonstrate how faith could flourish in the most inhospitable lands. His example was eagerly followed by other Russian monks. By 1572, the Pechenga Monastery counted about 50 brethren and 200 lay followers. Six years after St. Tryphon's death in 1583, the wooden monastery was raided and burnt down by the Swedes on December 25, 1589. It is said that the raid claimed the lives of 51 monks and 65 lay brothers, bringing the history of Tryphon's establishment to an end. This revenge raid, and was part of the Russo-Swedish War of 1590–1595, is said to have been carried out by a Finnish peasant chief Pekka Antinpoika Vesainen, but the claim is contested. In 1591 Tsar

Fyodor I Feodor I Ioannovich () or Fyodor I Ivanovich (; 31 May 1557 – 17 January 1598), nicknamed the Blessed (), was Tsar of all Russia from 1584 until his death in 1598. Feodor's mother died when he was three, and he grew up in the shadow of his ...

ordered to revive the monastery in the vicinity of

Kola unit was the big kola int eh Kola may refer to: People * Koła, a Polish noble family * Kola (name), people with the given name/surname Kola * Kola (singer), Ukrainian singer, songwriter and performer of her own songs * Kola people, Gabonese p ...

, but the new hermitage fell in flames in 1619. Although the New Pechenga Monastery was eventually moved to the town itself, it was so sparsely settled that the

Holy Synod In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod. For instance, the Holy Synod is a ruling body of the Georgian Orthodox ...

deemed it wise to disband it in 1764. As the Russian colonization of the

Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is border ...

accelerated in the late 19th century, the Pechenga Monastery was restored at its original location in 1886. Prior to the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, it consisted of the Upper Monastery, commemorating the graves of Tryphon and 116 martyrs of the 1589 raid, and the new Lower Monastery, overlooking the Pechenga Bay. The

stauropegic A stauropegion, also spelled stavropegion (from , in turn from σταυρός ''stauros'' "cross" and πήγνυμι ''pegnumi'' "to affirm"), is a monastery or a parish which depends directly on the Primate (bishop), primate or on the Holy Sy ...

monastery continued to flourish when Pechenga became part of Finland in 1920. At the end of the

Continuation War The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet–Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 ...

in 1944 the

Moscow Armistice The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on 19 September 1944, ending the Continuation War. The Armistice restored the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940, with a number of modi ...

granted Petsamo to the Soviet Union. The brethren were evacuated to the

New Valamo Monastery New Valamo or New Valaam (, or more informally, especially in the postal address: ''Uusi-Valamo'', , ) is an Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox monastery in Heinävesi, Finland. The monastery was established in its present location in 1940. Howev ...

, where they kept their autonomy until 1984 when the last of them died at the age of 110. Although the monastery buildings were destroyed during the war, the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

decreed the reestablishment of the monastery in Pechenga in 1997.

Gallery

File:Petsamo Church.jpg, The monastery church c. 1911
(photo by Ellisif Wessel) File:Alaluostari.jpg, The church in the 1940s File:Pechenga, Kola Peninsula, Russia (21771088814).jpg, File:Pechenga Monastery Petsamon luostari 01.jpg, Modern buildings

References

* Friis J.A.: The Monastery of Petschenga, 1896, online here: https://archive.org/details/monasteryofpetsc00friiiala * Nikolsky A.V. ''Монастыри. Энциклопедический словарь''. Moscow, Moscow Patriarchate Publishers, 2000. {{Coord, 69, 32, 39.94, N, 31, 12, 47.15, E, region:RU-MUR_type:landmark, display=title Russian Orthodox monasteries in Russia Religious organizations established in 1533 Buildings and structures in Murmansk Oblast Pechengsky District 1533 establishments in Europe 16th-century establishments in Russia Wooden churches in Russia Cultural heritage monuments in Murmansk Oblast