Samara Nicholas Monastery of the Samara Diocese. History of the monastery

During the perestroika years, many churches and whole monastic complexes were returned to the church, and this encouraging fact indicates that spiritual revelation has finally come after many years of atheistic darkness. But not all the holy things give again to people the grace of God sent down through them. Many are destroyed, and we find evidence of them only in the surviving documents. Among them is the former Nicholas Monastery of Samara.

An urgent need for a monastery

From the history of the region it is known that once in ancient times in Samara there was a monastery, abolished in 1738. For more than a century this Volga city has lived without monastic ministry, but in 1851, when it became the center of the newly created province, under which the Samara diocese was established, the question of the establishment of the monastery acquired relevance.

The reasons that prompted the local bishop Eusebius (Orlinsky) to disturb the synodal authorities with a petition for the creation of a monastery in the city, besides religious ones, were purely everyday, dictated by pressing daily problems. He wrote to the capital that his heart aches for widowed and helpless priests who have nowhere to settle, and also for their children, who are deprived of the opportunity to prepare for future parish positions.

In addition, it was required to exercise control over the defendants of the church courts, which, according to established practice, were sent to different churches. All these and many other problems, in the opinion of the Samara ruler, could be resolved by the creation of a monastery in the city. His address to the Holy Synod was also supported by the city governor K.K. Grotto, for its part, recommended for the future monastery quite suitable territory on the banks of the Volga.

Financial difficulties

Synodal officials reacted to the request of the Samara bishop with understanding, and in 1857 he received a "blessed letter", that is, the necessary permission in this case. The case for the governor also did not arise, and he, according to his promise, helped to allocate the necessary land. But further problems began.

As you know, for the construction of a complex of facilities, which was to become the Samarskii Nikolaevsky Monastery, except for good intentions, we also need money, and there were not any of them in this case. Contrary to expectations, rich depositors and benefactors were not in a hurry to announce themselves. The Samara diocese also could not provide financial assistance, as it was going through bad times.

The way out of this situation

The solution was found unexpectedly. The newly appointed Bishop Theophilus (Nadezhdin) in Samara - the former Eusebius went to rest at that time, turned out to be a man not only pious, but also quite practical. He was visited by a simple and quite reasonable idea that the vast lands allocated by the city community for the construction of the monastery can be rented for a while under plowing to the same townspeople, and subsequently used money to use for construction.

It's simple and reasonable, but ... this is where the wicked heartlessness of the inhabitants of the city was confused. He told them that the lord, and with him the diocesan leadership, simply want to enrich themselves, taking advantage of the opportunity, and to use land allocated for charitable deeds for personal gain. What started here! There were written and oral slanders in the Synod, accusations of the most honest and most well-meaning governor in involvement in fraud, gossip and gossip. Total and do not list.

The beginning of construction of the monastery

How groundless these accusations were, life itself showed. After a very short time on the monastic grounds, the building of fraternal cells and utility rooms began to be erected, and soon the first temple, consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, appeared. Contrary to the opinion of numerous malicious people, the money went exactly to the purpose for which the land was leased out.

Step by step, the Samara Nicholas Monastery began to settle. Finally, there appeared rich investors. The first was the famous Volga merchant FM Shchepkin, who sacrificed the monasteries of a hundred and fifty acres of excellent arable land, which was immediately leased, but this time none of the townsfolk dared to say anything in condemnation.

His example was followed by the local landowner P.K. Astrakhantsev, who wrote to the monastery a spacious wooden house, in which a hospital church was later installed. This is the beginning of the regular receipt of deposits. Samara province was rich in generous and pious people, whose money in 1861 was built the first stone church.

Getting a monastery official status

However, a curious detail - built and already operating Samarskoye Nikolayevsky Monastery, even after the erection of a stone church in it, had no official status. To receive it again, a corresponding appeal was sent to the Holy Synod, and after three years of consideration, the official opening of this existing monastery for several years already took place.

It was registered as a third-class hostel monastery. A dormitory is a form of organization of internal life, in which none of the population has any personal property. Everything is common property, but the abbot, treasurer, hieromonks and other monks received a salary. This is preserved records in archival documents.

Monastic welfare

By the end of the XIX century, the Samarskii Nikolaevsky Monastery developed into a strong and well-formed economy. From the same archival records it follows that under the village of Shiryaev Buerak he owned one hundred and twenty-eight acres of land with meadows, arable land and quarries, rented to them, as well as almost seven hundred and fifty dessiatines of meadows and fields in other areas. In addition, the Samara province to support its material level has allocated an additional hundred and forty dessiatines to the monastery.

Nikolaevsky male monastery (Samara) received, among other things, and content from its diocese. According to the state approved in 1867, he was annually paid about six hundred and sixty rubles. The income from leasing land was at least two and a half thousand rubles a year, and another thousand brought its own candle factory. The amount obtained for those times is impressive. Given that at the end of the XIX century the number of inhabitants did not exceed fifty people, it can be concluded that they did not feel the need.

The beginning of a new century

With the advent of the twentieth century, the number of brethren began to decline for various reasons, and by 1912, according to the then published Orthodox encyclopaedic dictionary, there were only thirty-five people. During the Russo-Japanese War, several inhabitants were mobilized, including hieromonk Lavrenti (Pavlov), sent to the Far East for the active army.

By 1916, only twenty-two people remained in the monastery, including the abbot and four novices. Significantly reduced and the area of their lands, but increased the flow of funds from the diocesan treasury, as by this time the monastery was listed in the second class.

Monastic temples

With this money, in the same year, the cell building, which has survived to the present day, is being built. His photo is in the article. It is also known that in the last pre-revolutionary years on the territory of the monastery, except for other structures, there was a temple of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" and one more - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

The first of them was founded in 1860. Due to the scarcity of means, he was equipped in a donated monastery and a suitably rebuilt house. The second church was built and consecrated in 1909 on the site of the former, who came to the dilapidated and for this reason dismantled, which was always considered the main one, and thanks to which St. Nicholas gave his name to the whole monastery. On the photos that have survived to this day, he strikes the eye with the grandeur of his outlines.

Other buildings

The Samarskiy Nikolayevsky Monastery was located on a very large territory, bounded by the Volga shore and the present streets of Chelyuskintsev, Osipenko and Radonezhskaya. All of it was surrounded by a high stone fence, from which until now only the gates, photos of which are presented in the article, have been preserved.

At the disposal of the monastery were four stone houses for household and household purposes, as well as the above-mentioned temple buildings, of which the temple of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" was located in the depths, and Nikolsky was in front of the holy gate. In addition, in the fenced monastery territory there was a cemetery where graves and laymen were made for a certain fee.

The ruined shrine

After the Bolsheviks came to power, the monastery suffered the same fate as many of the holy places of Samara. In 1918 he was selected and handed over to the needs of the local department of public education refectory, which housed the training classes, and five years later, the other government monastery buildings moved to the disposal of the new government.

In the early thirties, it was time for the temple buildings, services in which for many years were not committed. Initially, they were transferred to one of the Samara factories to organize a club in them, but then completely disassembled, their bricks went to the construction of nearby houses and a kitchen factory.

During the perestroika years, the monastery did not revive, as almost all was destroyed. There remained only the gate, mentioned above, a two-storeyed cell building, which underwent considerable restructuring and internal redevelopment, as well as the refectory building, which completely changed its appearance due to numerous repairs.

In 2013, Orthodox activists in the niche over the gates were installed two images. The Holy Mother of God and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker depicted on them remind the inhabitants of the city of that sanctity that once was here and which was trampled and scolded by their fathers to the sound of victorious marches.