Holy Dormition Pskovo-Pechersk Monastery

Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, surrounded by stone fortress walls and resembling an impregnable citadel, is one of the largest and most famous male monasteries in Russia. It is located in the north-west of the Pskov region, in the town of Pechory, 43 km from the regional center and only 2 km from the state border with Estonia. From the very beginning of its existence this ancient monastery served as a stronghold of Orthodoxy on the turbulent frontier of the Pskov land and the possessions of the Baltic Livonia. The well-preserved monastery complex attracts thousands of tourists and pilgrims every year.

.

Video: Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersk Monastery

Contents

Highlights

The architectural complex of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery was created during the XV-XIX centuries, and many ancient buildings have survived to this day. The monastery is open for individual visits, but to get acquainted with its rich history and spiritual life, tourists are better off joining excursions. Groups are formed in the center “Pilgrim”. Here you can also inexpensively spend the night, have lunch.

.

The main holiday of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery is the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated in August. Pilgrims say that on this day the services in the monastery church are quite special. The faithful feel that at the liturgies invisibly present generations of great prayers, monks, who in these walls for centuries communicated with God.

.

But not everything is so patriarchal in the ancient monastery. Monks use mobile communication, are active in social networks. The monastery has its own online store, information and cognitive portal. There is a publishing house of spiritual literature, equipped with modern electronic equipment, and the church shops sell souvenir flash drives with tests for knowledge of the Holy Letter, CDs with video excursions.

.

History of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery

Reliable sources attribute the foundation of the Dormition Holy Pechersk Monastery to 1473, but according to legend, hermit monks settled in the caves located in this area as early as the 14th century. They are said to have come to these places from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, seeking refuge in the Pskov lands from Tatar raids. Legends have preserved the name of only one of the hermits – Mark, who became known as the “original monk”. In the same century, according to legend, the amazing caves were discovered by Izborsk hunters who traveled along the wooded banks of the Kamenets River, which was navigable in those times, but today is a small stream. Chronicles tell us that from narrow vertical crevices in the coastal sand hill they heard a marvelous singing and “the fragrance of incense.”

.

In 1470, John Shestnik, a priest from the St. George Church of Jurjev-Livonian (today’s Tartu), settled in one of the caves of Pechora. Here he and his family found refuge from the persecution of the Latin Germans, who were persecuting the Orthodox people. In the enlarged cave John and his wife Maria built a church in honor of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. During the work Maria became seriously ill and decided to take monastic tonsure under the name of Vassa, being the first nun of the monastery. After the death of his wife, John also took a monastic vow, becoming in tonsure Iona. This pious couple is ranked to the countenance of Pskov-Pechersk Monks.

.

In 1473 the church was consecrated, and soon monks began to settle near it. Cells and another temple appeared here, but the Livlanders, who attacked the monastery, burned the log buildings. Raids and ravages on the modest monastery, which had no defensive structures, continued for a long time, because the Livonians sought to prevent the spread of Orthodoxy in the border lands.

.

In 1519 the sovereign clerk Misyur Munekhin arrived from Moscow to the Pskov lands, and soon under his command large-scale stone construction began in the monastery. The sacred caves were preserved, and new buildings were erected closer to the water, which made the landscape of the monastery especially picturesque. The monastery entered its true heyday through the efforts of Abbot Cornelius, who governed it from 1529 to 1570. This abbot, architect and warrior turned the monastery into a stronghold surrounded by a mighty stone wall with 9 towers. The monastery became the light of the establishment of Orthodoxy among the heterogeneous local population. The talented architect Pavel Zabolotny was Cornelius’ companion in the arrangement of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery, which became a masterpiece of defense and church architecture. The efforts of both were specially noted by Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who decided to execute them allegedly for the fact that they built defensive buildings “on their own accord”. One of the legends says that the hegumen was beheaded by the angered autocrat right at the walls of the monastery. Having recovered from a fit of rage, the tsar himself carried the breathless body of Cornelius to the holy caves, ordering him to be buried with honors. Since then, the road leading from the Nikolskaya Tower to the Church of the Assumption has been called the Bloody Way.

.

In military battles the fortified monastery first participated in the middle of 1581. Then Pskov and Pechory blocked the way of the 100,000-strong army of the Polish king Stephen Bathory, who was advancing deep into the Russian lands. In total the monastery stronghold was subjected to storms of Lithuanians, Swedes and Poles for a century and a half. Under Peter the Great it received the status of a state defense fortification. The last battle at its walls took place in 1703. After the signing of the Peace of Nystadt with Sweden in 1721, the Pskovo-Pechersk Monastery completed its defensive mission.

.

In the XVIII-XIX centuries there was a peaceful monastic life, new temples, fraternal buildings and outbuildings were erected. In 1920 Pechora district, according to the Tartu Peace Treaty, went to Estonia, and the monastery was outside the borders of the RSFSR. In the pre-war years, its inhabitants were some participants of the White Movement, the brethren maintained close ties with the Russian Foreign Church, with representatives of the House of Romanov.

.

During the fighting during World War II, some of the monastery buildings were damaged by artillery fire, but not fatally. In the post-war years, the Pskov-Pechersk monastery was not subjected to persecution, in order to assure the local population of “freedom of religion in the USSR”, and the monastic life here continued. In the 60s of the last century the reconstruction of fortress walls and towers began, and in the 80s a large-scale restoration of church architectural monuments was carried out. In those years the wall paintings were renewed, the domes of the temples were covered with copper sheeting. The number of inhabitants increased, and the monastery erected a new fraternal building, built icon painting and sewing workshops.

.

In 2012, the nearby territory of the relocated military unit was placed at the disposal of the monastery. Since 2018, the hegumen of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery has been the highly energetic Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhov, who has been called the confessor of President Vladimir Putin.

.

Monastery today

Beyond the threshold of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, travelers find themselves in a kind of time capsule, separated from the outer bustle. This is a self-sufficient patriarchal world, where almost everything is produced that is required by the daily modest demands of the inhabitants. The carpentry workshop smells of resinous sawdust, olive oil, and jelly-like hot glue. Here they handcraft furniture, kiosks, analogies, carved crosses, frames for images. Monks, endowed with artistic gift, work in icon-painting workshops. Among the brethren there are skillful wood carvers, potters. From the chimney above the roof of the squat monastery blacksmith’s shop smoke wafts from the coals heated in the crucible. As hundreds of years ago, the masters provide the household with the necessary forged products. Some of the blacksmiths are well into their seventies, but the monks are strong in body and spirit.

.

Round the clock burning logs in the ovens of the monastery bakery. Here they bake prosphora, bread. In the kitchen is prepared simple and unpretentious food for the monks. The novices prepare meals for hundreds of pilgrims in the refectories of hospice houses outside the monastery walls. Nearby, a wood storehouse full of resinous logs is covered with a canopy. The tedious chopping of firewood is a common obedience in the monastery. Everyone from the neophyte novice to the archimandrite works here in turn. The cattle yard is fenced in nearby. The work of caring for the animals is also familiar to all the residents, as well as the duties of the watchman. By the way, once Patriarch Pimen of Moscow and All Russia, who once lived here and then reached the highest level in the church hierarchy, admitted that he would like to spend the rest of his life serving as a watchman at the economic gate of the Pskovo-Pechersk monastery.

.

The monastery library houses a unique collection of ancient folios, manuscripts, liturgical books, spiritual literature, historical and philosophical works. Walking around the monastery, you are sure to see monks sitting with books under the canopy of trees or on the inner platforms of the defensive monastery walls.

.

In addition to the monks and priests, the monastery is home to a number of elders, outwardly indistinguishable from the brethren, but in their eyes you can read a special focus on the faith. Old age is not necessary to attain this spiritual status. The elder is a special kind of ministry available to a select few ascetics.

Attractions on the territory of the monastery

The Pskov-Pechersk Monastery is surrounded by a powerful stone fortress wall with nine watchtowers, all of which have their own names. The front entrance leads to the monastery through the Holy Gate in the Petrovskaya Tower.

.

The oldest temple of the monastery is the underground Church of the Assumption, consecrated in 1473. The later Baroque facade with blue domes dotted with golden stars is attached directly to the cut of the mountain. Above the portal are depicted the Kiev-Pechersk holy fathers Anthony and Theodosius. The entrance door leads to the cave temple. The vaults of the cave are faced with brick and supported by stone columns. The carved wooden iconostasis of the main aisle was made in the XVIII century, the patterned panels are decorated with gilding. Here are kept especially revered icons, among them is the image of the Dormition of the Mother of God, painted in 1521. On the walls behind the iconostasis darkened ancient frescoes have been preserved. In the niche at the southern wall are buried the relics of the Monk Martyr Cornelius.

.

Near the Dormition Cathedral is the entrance to the near and far Holy Caves. At the entrance on the right is the tomb of the Monk Vassa, in the chapel on the left are buried the Monk Jonah and Mark. From here, seven underground galleries run deep into the hill. All year round the temperature here fluctuates within +5…+10 °С. About a thousand monks and laymen are buried on this pogost. In the wall niches, covered with stone slabs, found rest the ancestors of commander Kutuzov, historian Tatishchev, poet Pushkin, composer Mussorgsky.

.

Opposite the Uspensky Cathedral in the early XIX was built the building of the hospital with the chapel of St. Righteous Lazarus. To the east of the facade of the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary there is a belfry. Usually bells are raised on high towers, but here they are hung in two tiers between rows of powerful supporting pillars, enclosed in brick walls. There are 30 bronze bells of different sizes, each with a unique sound. The largest bell weighs about 4 tons, it was presented to the monastery by Tsar Peter the Great. There is also a gift of Ivan the Terrible weighing 3 tons, this bell was delivered here in 1562.

.

Above the belfry rises a tower. There since the first decades of the XVIII century clock mechanism operates there. Every quarter of an hour marks the overflow of small bells. The clock is echoed by the resounding ringing of a 122-pound bell, once sent to the Pskov-Pechersk monastery by Tsar Boris Godunov.

.

Next to the bell tower is the Church of the Annunciation, erected at the command of hegumen Cornelius in 1541. The refectory was attached to it. In the XIX century in the refectory was consecrated the Church of the Presentation of the Lord. In 2019, a souvenir store opened under the refectory.

.

Above the monastery rises St. Michael’s Cathedral, built on a hill above the caves. This place is called the Holy Hill. Crowned with a gilded dome, the temple, erected in 1815-1827 in the style of classicism – the most imposing structure of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery and the dominant of the monastery architectural complex. In its walls, on gilded plaques the names of the defenders of Pskov, who fell in battles with Napoleon’s troops in 1812, are imprinted. The cathedral contains miracle-working icons, and its main relic is the right hand of the holy martyr Tatiana.

.

In the center of the monastery there are two holy springs. Over the wells are built chapels. Here you can always pick up a flask of consecrated water, standing in line.

.

Practical information

The monastery excursion office is located on Yurievskaya Street, 82-A (about 2 km from the monastery). The Pskovo-Pechersk Monastery owns a hotel on Oktyabrskaya Square, 8, within walking distance of the monastery. The rooms are designed for 2-9 beds. There is a cafe in the building. Hot breakfasts are served from 08:00 to 12:00. Until 19:00 you can have a snack with pastries and tea. From the pilgrimage center to the entrance to the monastery three times a day runs a minibus.

.

On the territory of the monastery and in the center “Pilgrim’s House” work souvenir shops. They offer church utensils, books from the monastery printing house, rosary beads, photo albums with views of the monastery, art reproductions. There are also beautiful works created in the icon-painting workshop. The images are painted on boards, decorated with gilding. The cost of icons – from 350 to 16,000 rubles.

.

Few people leave the monastery without tasty gifts. The kiosks sell pies, bread, monastery kvass (50 rubles/liter), honey. Gingerbread with jam and honey, berry and chocolate filling are in special demand. Carved forms on the gingerbread embossed relief images of the temples of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery. Sweets are hand-painted with colored glaze. The pastries are made according to the ancient recipe, they taste of seven spices (ginger, cardamom, etc.), keep fresh for more than two months, and the bakers do not use factory preservatives and flavorings. The cost of gingerbread – from 100 to 600 rubles, depending on the size. A good treat is a gingerbread cake with a panoramic print of the monastery complex in a gift box (1000 rubles).

.

How to get there

The Pskov-Pechersk Monastery is located at the address: 5 International Street. From the bus station in the center of Pechory (Yurievskaya Street, 5) to the monastery there are buses. But Pechory is a small town, so walking from the bus station to the monastery will take no more than half an hour.

.