The Pokrovsky Nunnery () in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, Ukraine, known in full as the Nunnery of the Protection of the Mother of God, is a religious complex, including the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, under the control of the Kyiv Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. "Pokrovsky" can be translated as

Intercession Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of prayer, praying on behalf of others, or Intercession of saints, asking a saint in heaven to pray on behalf of oneself or for others. The Apostle Paul's exhortation to Saint Timothy, Timothy speci ...

. The nunnery was founded in 1889 and developed in the last decade of the 19th century by the Grand Duchess Alexandra of Russia (1838–1900), the estranged wife and later widow of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich.

History

Brought up as a

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

, the Grand Duchess Alexandra converted to the Orthodox faith on her marriage in 1856. About 1881, after her marriage had broken down, she settled in Kiev at the

Mariinskyi Palace The Mariinskyi Palace () is the official residence of the president of Ukraine. The Elizabethan baroque palace is sited on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kyiv, Ukraine, adjoining the Neoclassical architecture, neo-classical Verkhovna Rada ...

. In 1888, she bought a plot of land near Voznessenskaya Hill, and there, with permission from Metropolitan Platon of Kiev, she founded a nunnery.Irene W. Galaktionova, ''A Life of Servitude: Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna'' (Royal Russia, 2014, ), pp. 48–49 The building of the nunnery began in 1889, paid for out of Alexandra's own fortune. In 1892, Alexandra secretly took perpetual monastic vows before a monk who came from

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

, under the name of Anastasia."АНАСТАСИЯ КИЕВСКАЯ"
pravenc.ru, undated, accessed 22 March 2023 (in Russian) Although she lived from then on by the Studian monastic rule, her religious vows did not come to light until after her death.
orthodox.kiev.ua, accessed 28 February 2023 The complex came to include a residential convent, with guest rooms, a church, a hospital with another church, an outpatient clinic, and a pharmacy, a parish school for girls, and shelters for the sick and for poor children and orphans. The nunnery's hospital soon achieved a high standard of medical care and owned the first

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

machine in Kiev. The Grand Duchess sold her valuables to raise funds for expansion, and the complex continued to develop throughout the 1890s. In 1896, a significant new church, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, designed by Valentin Nikolaev, was begun.Изучаем историю Лукьяновки и Татарки: Где находилась Киевская Швейцария и "Дача Хрущева"
h interesniy.kiev.ua, 12 June 2012

Tsar Nicholas II Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 186817 July 1918) or Nikolai II was the last reigning Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. He married ...

founded a new hospital for five hundred patients on the site. In 1897, there was a

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

epidemic in Kiev, and Grand Duchess Alexandra established another hospital, where she herself helped to nurse patients. Three years later, she died and was buried in the nunnery, according to her wishes. After the death of its founder, the nunnery remained under the care of the Tsar and his family. The state paid 80,000 roubles a year for the costs of the hospitals. Between 1910 and 1911, a new surgical hospital was built. In 1911, the fifteen-domed Cathedral of St Nicholas was consecrated, with the church of the Icon of the Mother of God within it. However, the cathedral was not completed, as the outbreak of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1914 prevented the planned decorations from being provided inside it. In 1919, two years after the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, the Soviet government nationalized the property of the nuns, who continued to live in the community for four more years, registering it as a workers' cooperative. In 1923, the monastery came under the control of the clergy of the Living Church, who forced the superior of the monastery, Ihumenia Zofia, to resign; the Pokrovsky nunnery was liquidated and turned into workers' apartments. The churches, without their domes, were used to house a nursery, a printing house, and a book shop. Ihumenia Zofia went with about twenty sisters to

Irpin Irpin (, ) is a city on the Irpin River in Bucha Raion, Kyiv Oblast, northern Ukraine. It is located next to the capital Kyiv. Irpin hosts the administration of Irpin urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The city has a population o ...

, where she established a secret monastic community.София (Гринева Софья Евгеньевна)
ccas.ru (in Russian).The Pokrovsky nunnery was reinstated and nuns returned to it after the occupation of Kiev by the Germans in 1941. The nuns had an outpatient clinic, and its doctors issued many false certificates of diseases to save local people from deportation to

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

. The nuns were allowed to remain and to continue their hospitals, including a military hospital, after Kiev was taken back by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. After the war, the nuns remained, but they were allowed to use only parts of their former property, in which some of their possessions were nationalized. They renovated the convent and the two churches. The cathedral was badly damaged by a lightning strike in 1981, but the renovation works which followed included the first ever interior decoration of the cathedral. After 1991, on the site of the wooden Orthodox Church of the Protection of the Mother of God, a church of the same name was built of brick and consecrated in 1999. In 2007, the lost domes of the Cathedral of St Nicholas were rebuilt.

Gallery

File:Izhakevich Intercession Monastery.jpg, The Nunnery painted by Ivan Izhakevich, 1910 File:Двери в Николаевский собор, Киев.jpg, Doors of the cathedral File:GrandDuchessAleksandraPetrovnaTomb.jpg, Tomb of Grand Duchess Alexandra, Sister Anastasia File:P1370958-1.JPG, Church of the Protection of the Mother of God File:Pokrova Nunnery Kyiv 5.JPG, Convent File:NunneryOfIntercessionOfTheotokosKyivGates.jpg, Entrance gate File:Покровський монастир. Миколаївський собор. 1896—1911 рр.jpg, Domes of the cathedral File:Собор Миколаївськи 4.JPG, View of the complex in 2011

Notes

External links

{{Kyiv churches Churches in Kyiv Churches of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Ukraine Eastern Orthodox cathedrals Nunneries in Ukraine Religious buildings and structures completed in the 1890s Christian monasteries established in the 19th century