Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery: description, history, interesting facts and reviews

Among the holy monasteries, reborn to life after long years of desolation, resumed religious life and the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery, which was a man's monastery before the revolution. Nowadays it is given to honest nuns, seeking salvation of the soul and praying for all that they left in the world. The long and difficult journey passed by this holy abode will be our story.

The Far Path of Monk Efrosin

According to the legend, the Savior-Eleazarovsky Monastery, located twenty-eight kilometers from Pskov, was founded in 1425 by the humble monk of the Snetogorsky Monastery, Euphrosyne, who bore the name Elazar in the world. It is known that he was very tempted in the Law of God. In his native village, Videlibier, from a small age, learned to read, read the Holy Scripture, when he grew in the years, took monastic vows and spent his free time obedience in the monastery library.

Even at the beginning of the monastic ministry, his rector blessed him to go to the sea to Constantinople, which at that time still did not fall under the Turkish rule and was the center of world Orthodoxy - Second Rome. There he had to ask the holy fathers for explanations of some liturgical questions that were difficult to understand, which aroused controversy among the brethren.

After making a difficult journey and reaching the goal of his journey, the monk Evfrosin was honored to be accepted by the Patriarch of Constantinople himself and in conversation with him understood everything for which he was sent. Having thus performed the obedience entrusted to him, preserved by God, he safely returned to his abode, where he told the brethren what he had learned beyond the sea.

The vision sent down by the monk

After that Evfrosin desired to glorify the Lord with the feat of desert life, for which, after asking the priest's blessing (without this it is impossible), he retired to the forest thicket near Pskov Lake, where in the lowland the unnamed river was divided into two branches. There, having cut down to itself a squalid cell, the newly-emerged lonely man surrendered to prayers and divine thought.

But it is not in vain that it is written that the lamp of faith will not hide under a bushel. Began to flock to his home all those who thirsted, leaving a vain world, to serve the Lord. Soon, as the legend tells, there was a vision to Euphrosyne. In a subtle dream, he appeared to the wise hierarchs - the fathers of Orthodoxy, commanded to build a temple of God in the middle of the forest and establish a monastery with him. According to their will, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery was born.

Formation of the monastery

A lot of effort was exerted by the brethren, writhing the forest and clearing the place, needed for all the buildings needed by the monastery. Great work also cost the erection of the temple. But the grace of God stayed with all the monks in all, and very soon between the age-old pines rose to the sky its walls. He was consecrated in honor of the Savior of our Lord Jesus Christ. Found at the monastery and patrons of the earth, not stinted on donations. Their bounties were built by the brethren numerous buildings and acquired an economy.

Their main concern was service to God and spiritual growth, in which they took an example from the holy fathers who glorified the Lord with numerous feats of faith. After becoming the rector of the monastery founded by him, Euphrosyn acquired many associates, who in due course initiated the new monasteries, which underwent many trials in the following centuries, but did not disappear from the face of the earth.

The greatest shrine of the monastery was the icon of the Mother of God, which was kept in its walls, which was the gift of the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennady II. It served as an expression of continuity, which passed to the Russian church after the fall of the Byzantine sister under the Turkish scimitar.

The elder Filofiy

After a long and difficult journey, Euphrosyn departed to the Lord at the age of ninety-five, assuming before his demise the schema with the name Eleazar. In honor of this, the Pskov Spaso-Eleazar monastery founded by him and existing until now is named. The life and ministry of the ascetic became a good grain that fell on fertile soil and increased in future generations of holy fathers who struggled within the walls of the monastery.

The most famous of them is the elder Filofi - the first, who pointed to the great mission of the Russian people and its role in the fate of Orthodoxy. It was to him, after the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, that the fall of the First Rome, the empire that had fallen into the Latin heresy, and after it the Second - Byzantium, made the ungodly union (the union) with the Latins, condoned the apostasy from true faith. Since then, the whole responsibility for the purity of Orthodoxy lies with Rus. She promised the Lord to be the Third Rome, and the Fourth will be gone.

The Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery largely served the cause of the unification of the Russian lands around Moscow, becoming their spiritual center and having gathered in their walls many learned men. Again, the voice of the elder Filofia sounded throughout the country, supporting the Grand Duke of Moscow with his authority and thereby investing the reins of government in a huge state.

The Further Life of the Holy Monastery

In 1574 the main shrine of the monastery - the Cathedral of the Three Saints - was erected. He was consecrated in honor of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, who once appeared in the vision of the Monk Euphrosynus and commanded the creation of a holy abode on this site.

In the following years, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery (Pskov) passed many tests. Due to the proximity of the border, he was repeatedly attacked by Poles, Lithuanians and Livonian knights. Repeatedly he was razoren and plundered, but each time, according to the prayers of the brethren, the Lord poured out His mercy on him, and monastic life was revived among still smoking ruins.

In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery was repeatedly replenished by the inhabitants of a number of other abbeys, abolished for one reason or another. The greatest number of monks came from the former Great-Preobrazhensky Monastery and the Glinka Desert.

Widely known are the acts of the abbot of the monastery hegumen Juvinalia, who headed the monastery in the last pre-revolutionary period. His tireless labors were introduced by the elders, the number of inhabitants was significantly increased, and ecclesiastical services were given unprecedented splendor. In these years, the frequent guest of the monastery was the Grand Duchess Elisaveta Fedorovna, who made many contributions to his treasury.

Years of oblivion and spiritual darkness

After the Bolsheviks came to power, when the royal family took martyrdom and the very foundations of faith were violated in the country, the Spaso-Eleazarovsky monastery was abolished among other holy monasteries. In the Pskov region until 1925, the only active temple was the monastery cathedral, from which by that time three values had been seized, supposedly to help the starving. However, soon it was closed. Many of the monastery's residents were shot without trial and investigation. In 1918 they were put on carts and taken to the forest. None of them returned alive.

Attempts to rebuild the monastery on a worldly scale

Monastic buildings were repeatedly tried to find use, but each time ended in failure. At the end of the twenties, the ruined monastery was transferred to one of the Pskov institutes, but, unable to adapt to occupations in dilapidated premises, students and teachers soon left it.

The organization in the monastery of exemplary-demonstrative agricultural production was also disgracefully ended - none of the people planted persistently wanted to grow. After that, the former monastery several times changed owners, each time more and more collapsing. In a short time, the new authorities destroyed what the monastic labor created over many centuries.

Return to the Church

After many decades of oblivion, the monastery was revived at the turn of the new century, but now as a women's monastery. In May 2000, the church service was first performed in his church, and it was the beginning of a new history of the scorned but returned shrine. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, the nuns Elisaveta (Belyaeva), who was elevated five years later to the rank of abbot, was appointed rector of the Savior-Eleazarovsky Convent.

The work on the restoration of the monastery was very large, as at the time of his return to the bosom of the church, only the half-ruined Three-Sainted Cathedral, the brotherly building, also in disrepair, and some fragments of the stone fence remained.

In those years Academician D.D. Likhachev, personally appealed to the Minister of Culture with a request to allocate funds for repair and attract highly qualified specialists. Thanks to his efforts and the help of both individual citizens and a number of public organizations, it was possible in the shortest possible time to bring in a proper appearance what was still subject to restoration, and to return the people of the Savior-Eleazarovsky Convent.

Reviews of pilgrims and tourists

With the revival of monastic ministry, thousands of believers, those in whom the craving for spiritual roots alive for the life of the Russian people from time immemorial, were drawn to the monastery. The pilgrimage to the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Convent takes every year more and more mass character. People go to worship its shrines, among which the most important place is occupied by the miraculous icon of the Virgin "Theodore" and "Tsaregradskaya", as well as "The Savior of Eleazar".

Many believers and those who are just looking for their way to the church, after visiting the monastery, leave a record in a specially designed book for this or share their impressions on Internet sites. Most of them write about their excitement from contact with the living history of Russia, the impression of which becomes brighter through excursions organized by the pilgrimage service of the monastery.

In many reviews professionalism of the guides, acquainting the arrivals with the history of the monastery, and those events of the long-gone past, witnesses and participants of which she happened to become, is noted. The main thing that is a red thread in the records of the majority of pilgrims is gratitude to all those who with their work have revived this priceless shrine of Russian Orthodoxy.