Troitsky Antonievo-Siysky Monastery

In the North of Russia there are still places where time does not dominate, where it slows down its run. One of them is in the Arkhangelsk region, where the Holy Trinity Antonievo-Sii Monastery is hoisted to the sky in the wrong light of white nights - a witness and participant of many events of our history. For more than four centuries, it has been one of the main Orthodox shrines in our country, and its walls can tell a lot about it. You just need to be able to listen.

The begotten boy

It is known that in the sixties of the fifteenth century a pious family of a well-to-do peasant named Nikifor moved from Veliky Novgorod to the village of Kekhta in the Dvina volost. Hardworking was a man, that's why he did not translate wealth in the house. And only one misfortune overshadowed the life of the migrant - the Lord did not bless his wife Agatha with charity. Oh, how many years have passed since the three times round their rural pop around the analogue, having done that great mystery of marriage, and not heard in his hut children's voices.

In those years, from infertility knew only one means - an unhappy woman went to church, fell prostrate before a dark icon face and prayed tearfully to the Queen of Heaven to send her a long-awaited child. Not once has visited a pilgrimage and Agafia. She bowed her earthly bows and put on pood candles-she did not translate a penny in her husband's mousy. And she begged for happiness - the Mother of God blessed her son, who was called Andrew by the holy baptism.

Short marriage

It has long been noted among the people that such here, begotten from God, children are full of reason and virtue. And the boy Andrey in the seventh year comprehended the letter and took over from the parish priest the skill of icon painting. So he grew up, serving in the temple of God and helping his parents to lead their extensive farming, until the Lord called them.

Andrew was already grown by that time, and he was twenty-five years old when he considered it for the good of leaving his father's house and going to Veliky Novgorod, where his late parents once came from. He found a job there quickly - a strong and complaisant young man took to his service a local boyar and before he took his soul to him, that in the fifth year he gave his daughter for him. But, to know, there was not a Will of God for it - a year later a young wife, and then her father, died.

Novostrigennik Anthony

Burying his dead and burying him, as usual, thought Andrey and realized with his mind that it was not his destiny to live in peace, among sin and temptations, but should devote himself to God, shutting himself in one of the holy monasteries, with which the Russian land is so plentiful. Praying and blessing at the same priest who married him a year ago with a boyar daughter, he forever left Novgorod, but he directed his feet not to the Dvina parish, where his father's deserted house still stood, but to the holy monastery built on the Ken River, Near the city of Kargopol.

Here, in the walls of the ancient abode, Andrew began climbing to the crown of holiness, having tonsured monks with the name Antony. He spent a year in heavy monastic labors - he chopped out age-old pines, uprooted the stumps, clearing the place under the garden, and then worked in it, getting food for the brethren.

But most of all it was to his heart to take care of the sick and miserable, for whom a shelter was created in the monastery. The nights were spent by Anthony in prayers for the salvation of the souls of all Orthodox Christians. Soon his spiritual father, the Monk Pachomius Keski ordained him to the priesthood, and then blessed to the feat of asceticism, about which Antony had long spoken with him.

On the way to the holy place

Anthony left the monastery's habitable walls not alone, but with two comrades, just like him, seeking prayerful solitude. Praying, they retired to the impassable forest jungle, walled up to the monastery. At first, for their desert life, the monks chose a quiet place on the bank of the Yemtsa, cut down their cells and even built a wooden church dedicated to St. Nicholas. But the enemy of the human race podgodil them - he embittered them against the hearts of local residents, who decided that the monks wanted to take possession of their land. I had to leave the monks' place and continue their wanderings through the remote thickets. It should be noted that by the time their number was replenished by three more hermit-worshipers.

But the Lord did not leave them, sent a fisherman named Samuel in the way. He was the one who prompted the wanderers a place on Lake Mikhailov, where no one lived for ever, but from whence it came to be heard the bell and the angelic singing. And it was not far off - just three days' journey, by Russian standards - very close.

An ancient legend says that, having come to the place indicated by Samuel, the monks have grasped in their hearts, what is holy it is, and to be here a monastery that is destined to survive the centuries. And they put a cross on the deserted cape of the forest of Mikhailovskoye Lake, which expired in the sun with fresh pine resin, thus denoting the place of the future monastery.

First difficult steps

The future monastery will receive its name from the river Siya, flowing from Mikhailovsky Lake, which is the right tributary of the Dvina. She, like the lake itself, is rich in fish, and the forest jungle around is a beast, but for life it is not enough, and the brethren had to cut down the forest and plow the land. And on what to plow? There are no horses. Here, God's people were harnessed in turn to a self-made plow, tearing and falling on fresh furrows.

It is known for certain that the Antonievo-Siisky monastery was raised in very difficult conditions. There were even moments when the monks, exhausted, were about to leave the new place, and only the word and prayer of their spiritual mentor, Antony, helped the faint-hearted to overcome the minute weakness. But with God's help they finally settled down, and erected the first wooden church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity. Her main asset was the icon of the Holy Trinity, written by Antony himself, who, from a small age, succeeded in icon painting.

For many centuries Troitsky Antonievo-Siisky monastery was famous throughout the country for this shrine. By the prayers of the pilgrims, miracles of healing occurred before her. Finally, everyone was convinced of the graciousness of the image, when one day lightning struck the church, and after the fire that destroyed the entire inner part of the building, an icon, completely untouched by fire, was removed from the heap of ash.

Grand Duke's Letter

The Holy Trinity Antonievo-Siya Monastery received its official status in 1552, when its rector, the future holy St. Anthony, sent two monks to Moscow to Grand Duke Vasily III with a petition for the establishment of the monastery. The pious ruler took kindly to their request and sent with them not only the Chartered Letter, but also generous gifts for the remembrance of his own soul.

Blissful death and canonization

The Monk Anthony survived to seventy-nine years, thirty-seven of which he spent in the monastery he created, only occasionally leaving it for a brief hermitage, caused by the need for prayerful solitude. When he was asked before his death where he wanted to be buried, the ascetic ordered (to see if it was!) To take his body to the forest and leave them to be torn to beasts and birds, so that this trivial and they would remember it before God. Only the tearful entreaties of the brethren persuaded him to give up his decision.

He went to the Lord on December 20, 1556, during the reign of Emperor John IV of Grozny, and the Antonievo-Siy monastery continued his life already with the new abbot - the elder Cyril, indicated by Antony in his will. He himself for a pious life and numerous miracles in 1579 was listed as a saint.

Cathedral of the Holy Trinity

His memory is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on December 20, and on that day the Antonievo-Siya Monastery, a photo of which can be seen in this article, is filled with hundreds of pilgrims coming from different cities of the country to pay tribute to his memory and to bow to the holy relics now at Troodzsky Cathedral, Erected after the death of the saint.

The foundation of this five-domed church was completed in 1589 by the highest permission of the reigning Tsar, Fedor Ioannovich (the son of Ivan the Terrible). In his letter, sent to the monastery, he ordered to build it on the model of the Resurrection Cathedral of the Moscow Novodevichy Monastery and even to help builders sent an experienced master Zakhar. All the works performed by the Vologda artisan's team were completed in 1606, and soon the church was consecrated.

Monastery - witness to history

In the XVI-XVII centuries, the Antonievo-Siya Monastery occupies the place of one of the leading spiritual centers of the North of Russia, and belongs to it an important place in its history. It is known that five years ago the disgraced boyar Fedor Nikitich Romanov, the father of the future tsar, the founder of the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich, served in these walls. It was here at the behest of Boris Godunov who reigned then the boyar took monastic vows with the name Filaret.

Years will pass, and, having returned from the Polish captivity, he will become Patriarch of Moscow of All Russia. Then Filaret of the sympathetic hegumen Jonah will not forget, trying to do his best to facilitate his fate, and, having ascended to the patriarchal throne, will repay him with generous gifts. The monastery walls are also remembered by the still young Mikhail Lomonosov, who stopped here on his way to Moscow.

Royal patrons of the monastery

From the first days of its history, the Antonievo-Siya Monastery enjoyed an unchanged location of the supreme rulers of Russia. The beginning was laid by the Grand Duke Vasily III, as mentioned above, sent his gifts along with the Charter. A generous contributor was his son Ivan the Terrible, but, to be sure, somewhat in a different way. He transferred to the monastery a long list of boyars executed by him and attached a thousand rubles to them to remember their souls-such was the caring sovereign.

The Tsar Feodor, who ascended after him to the throne, not only financed the construction of the Trinity Cathedral, but also granted him a hundred-and-seventy-pound bell. Boris Godunov, who gratified the monasteries of five hundred rubles and many expensive church utensils, was not stingy . All the donators, the brethren diligently remembered at the prayers and made notes about that in the special "Fodder Book".

Over time, the Holy Trinity Antonievo-Sii Monastery entered such a power that not only enjoyed the generosity of the reigning persons, but also repeatedly provided them with material assistance. So, for example, the sovereign Mikhail Feodorovich covered the costs of the war with Sweden from the funds provided to him by the monastery treasury, and his father, Alexei Mikhailovich, took loans for the rearmament of the army.

Crowned pilgrims

A great role was played also by the pilgrimage to the Antonievo-Sii monastery of the reigning persons. Russian autocrats often visited the ancient walls that preserved the memory of their ancestors. For example, in the summer of 1819, they were honored by their visit to the Emperor Alexander I, and in 1856 - his nephew Alexander II. The Grand Dukes were also frequent guests. To receive high guests there was even a special ritual.

Usually the sovereign, coming out of the carriage beforehand, walked to the Holy Gates and there, met by the hegumen and the brotherhood, was blessed with the icon of St. Anthony, who was immediately given as a gift. Then followed a solemn prayer service in the Trinity Cathedral and a dinner in the Hegumen chambers. Needless to say, such visits contributed to the arrival in the monastery of a large number of ordinary pilgrims, abundantly replenished his treasury.

The golden age of the monastery

It is generally accepted that the monastery flourished in the 17th century. It then inhabited by about two hundred monks, whose forces were built six temple buildings, and the most significant of them was the church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin. Above the decoration of the monastery worked famous icon painters of the time, such as Fedor Zubov and Vasily Kondakov. In the vaults of the monastery were collected many outstanding monuments of Russian culture.

The peculiarities of the Holy Trinity Antonievo-Sii Monastery, such as unique collections of antiquities, architectural originality, piety and the beauty of the surrounding northern nature, provided him with a prominent place among other holy monasteries of Russia.

On the path of the ordeals

After the October coup, the Antonievo-Sii Monastery fully shared the fate of most Russian monasteries. In 1923 it was closed, part of the property was sent to state institutions, and the rest was simply looted. In the premises where the monks used to live and performed church services, they set up a colony for juvenile offenders. The monastic walls are high - they will not run away. In subsequent years, there were other institutions that did not have a relationship with religion.

Reborn monastery

Only with the onset of perestroika, which changed the government's policy toward religion, the monastery was returned to the church. But the formal transfer of the land and the buildings on it did not mean its revival as a spiritual center. The Antonievo-Sii Monastery, whose photo gives an idea of the diversity and specifics of the buildings on its territory, needed a serious restoration, for which considerable capital investments were required. A great role in solving these problems was played by his deputy, Archimandrite Trifon (Plotnikov), who was able to find the necessary resources and attract highly qualified specialists to work.

Today, the Antonievo-Siya Monastery (Arkhangelsk Region) fully revived its former greatness. It once again became a place where thousands of Russians who want to touch the living history of the Motherland come together. This is undeniably testified by the busy schedule of the pilgrimage service of the monastery, posted on its website.

The most frequent question that arises with those who wish to visit the Antonievo-Siisky Monastery: "How to get to this monastery, located in the heart of the Russian North?". To do this, you can take bus number 503, which leaves from Arkhangelsk to Emetsk, or by other buses No. 511, 505 and 520. The same person who has personal transport can get to him on the route No. 8 Arkhangelsk-Moscow. On 151 km there will be a turn to the right and the corresponding index.

Monastic Compound

In 2000, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II blessed the opening in St. Petersburg in the street of Olga Forsh metochion of the Holy Trinity Antonievo-Siya Monastery. It was created, and now it takes care of a significant part of the believers who live in the area, as well as a number of preschool institutions. It is planned to create similar farmsteads in other parts of the country.