The monastery was founded at the temple in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1995. The temple itself was built in 1796 with the money of the widowed Major General Anna Vasilievna Pozdnyakova. Its architecture is an example of the Empire style. The temple has two altars, the main chapel is consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the second in honor of the holy unmercenaries and wonderworkers Cosmas and Damian of Rome.
After the revolution of 1917, the temple remained active until 1938, when its rector, Archimandrite Euphrosin (Fomin) and the chairman of the church council, Andrei Anokhin, were arrested and shot on a trumped-up case, and the elder Elena Kondratyeva was sentenced to 10 years in the camps. With the closure of the temple, all its property was confiscated, and the nearby orchard was cut down. During the period of fascist occupation, the Germans kept livestock in the church building.
In the 50s XX century the temple was opened. It was restored by priest Andrei Pavlikov, a retired colonel, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, who was awarded many awards. Father Andrey served in the church for 17 years. He had special care for the monastics who settled in the nearest villages from closed monasteries. Initially, services were held in a small chapel in honor of the unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, and then the main chapel was restored.
On February 28, 1972, Hieromonk Arkady (Afonin), a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, was appointed rector of the temple, who served there with a break from April 1, 1974 to September 1, 1975 until March 25, 1991, when the Holy Synod was appointed Bishop of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
With the blessing of Bishop Donat (Shchegolev) of Kaluga and Borovsk, Father Arkady began to create a female monastic community. He built a house at the temple in which the sisters’ cells were located. He invited experienced nuns who had taken monastic vows in the old monasteries to the created monastic community. The following settled in the community: nun Anastasia (Kuzmina), schema-nun Martha, monastic monk of Optina Meletia (Barmina), schema-nun Tikhona, nun Dorothea, nun Nikodima, nun Agnia, nun Ksenia, blind nun Julia, who was in the camps for several years, and others. Young sisters also came to the community, 3 of whom took monastic vows, and 4 took monastic vows.
With the opening of new monasteries and due to the advanced age of the sisters in the community, by the beginning of the 90s. only 4 nuns remained, and on April 4, 1993, with the blessing of Archbishop Clement, several nuns of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery were sent to strengthen the monastic community in Baryatino. The nun Theophila (Lepeshinskaya) was appointed as the elder sister. The community began to develop: new buildings were built, the number of nuns increased. On December 26, 1995, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, the monastic community was transformed into a convent - the Nativity of the Virgin Hermitage, and nun Theophila was appointed abbess.
This is reported by the temple-built plaque on the northern wall inside the temple: “The widowed Major General Anna Vasilyevna Poznyakova, whose ashes are hidden under this stone, after receiving her late husband, completed the seventh part of this village and illuminated the present temple of this church in the name of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and after her death left this village in the possession of her dear brother, actual state councilor Matvey Vasilyevich Olsufiev” (spelling and punctuation of the original have been preserved). There is an entry about the year of the consecration of the temple on page 32 of the book by Count de Roshefer Nikolai Ivanovich “Inventory of Church Monuments of the Kaluga Province,” published in St. Petersburg in 1882:
“...the village of Boryatino, Rozhdestvenskaya, stone, built in 1796 by Mr. Poznyakov.” The architecture of the temple is an example of the Empire style.
The main altar was consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the other, later, is dedicated to the holy doctors and wonderworkers Cosmas and Damian, who suffered in Rome.
During the years of godless rule, the parish showed its devotees of faith and piety. In 1930, Hieromonk Elijah (Giravko) was arrested and exiled to the northern camps; in 1938, Archimandrite Euphrosinus (Fomin) and member of the church twenty Andrei Anokhin were shot; elder Elena Kondratyeva was sentenced to 10 years in the camps. With the closure of the temple, all property was confiscated, a granary was installed in the building, and during the short period of occupation the Germans kept livestock in it. In the 50s, the temple reopened to believers. Tovarkovsky resident Andrei Pavlikov fulfilled the vow he made at the front: if I return home alive, I will serve God. He returned with the rank of colonel, with military awards that opened the doors to many offices for him. The front-line colonel took holy orders and served in Baryatin for seventeen years. After Fr. Andrei's longest-serving servant was Hieromonk Arkady (Afonin), who came from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and left Baryatino after his episcopal consecration in 1991. Over the next two years, several abbots changed, so the sisters who arrived on April 3, 1993 found the church in very disrepair. The only consolation was the presence of the miraculous icon of the Mother of God “Lomovskaya”, which local residents called “Lamskaya”, because of the Church Slavonic style using titles. The opportunity arose soon to begin work to restore the church to its former splendor, which was described by elderly parishioners who remembered the rich decoration, the paintings, and the figured red brick fence that bordered the church before its closure in 1937. During the most difficult period for the Russian economy, the sisters experienced the same sorrows as all low-income citizens of their native country. The monastery did not have rich benefactors; it was possible to raise small funds for external repairs only in 1999. The hired team did not complete it as efficiently as we wanted, but it was futile to demand more for a low price. Since 2001, with the blessing of the governor of the Kaluga region Anatoly Dmitrievich Artamonov, the Kaluga plant "Remputmash" has been helping the monastery. The general director of the plant, Vyacheslav Anatolyevich Dubrovin, accepted the needs of the poor hermitage as his own and ordered a major overhaul of the interior of the temple, erecting a fence around the monastery, and completing the cell building. With the participation of plant workers, the crown of the dome and the spire of the bell tower were replaced. After the repairs, with the blessing of Bishop Clement, preparations began for painting the dome, walls, and ceiling of the chapel. Kaluga artists Tamara and Vsevolod Sitnikov finished painting the temple in April 2007. The main shrine of the monastery and temple is the miraculous icon of the Mother of God “Lomovskaya”. There are also particles of the relics of St. the unmercenary doctors Cosmas and Damian of Rome, the holy Optina and Kiev-Pechersk elders, svmch. George Meshchovsky, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, St. Seraphim of Sarov, a piece of the staff of St. Paphnutius Borovsky. The temple is open to visitors during worship hours, and at other times at the request of visitors. Near the temple there is
The monastery was created for a specific practical purpose: the village, like many, many Russian villages, was dying out, and the once magnificent church, built in the 18th century, needed care. Its architecture is an example of the Empire style. The main altar was consecrated in 1796 in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the other, later, is dedicated to the holy unmercenary doctors and wonderworkers Cosmas and Damian, who suffered in Rome.Another reason for the opening of the monastery was the actual existence of a small monastic community at the temple, which formed in the 70s of the twentieth century under the care of Hieromonk Arkady (Afonin), a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra; He served here, with a short break, from February 28, 1972 until his episcopal consecration on March 25, 1991 and appointment to the Yuzhno-Sakhalin See. In Baryatin, nuns who passed through the camps, lost their health and returned to their native places gathered: Anastasia (Kuzmina), tonsured Optina hieromonk Meletia (Barmina), schema-nun Tikhona, nun Nikodima, blind nun Iulitta, nun Maria (Klimkina), nun Ksenia. They came to services from near and far villages, looking for an opportunity to settle next to the only temple operating in the territory from Medyn to Kaluga. The community was replenished by local single parishioners, but by 1993 it was weakened: the old tonsured women of the pre-revolutionary monasteries went to the Lord, and those who were tonsured in Baryatin reached old age and could not, as before, sing and read during worship, or care for the temple, which was dilapidated with them.
Arriving on April 3, 1993, the sisters came to an empty house built twenty years earlier for the community, and everyone started from scratch. First of all, they took care of the daily cycle of worship, which is strictly observed to this day: at six in the morning the morning service begins with the canons of the monastic rule; at 17 o'clock vespers and matins are performed, at 21 o'clock prayers for the future sleep and the memorial are read. The nuns of the desert live according to the rules of the cenobitic monastery: they attend all church services, have a common meal, and work in obediences.
The lack of funds did not allow us to begin repairing the temple for a long time; we had to put up with an unplastered dome, dark with soot, painted with white oil paint about twenty years ago, walls of an indeterminate color with stains from washing at a height where grandmothers reached from a stepladder, and ridiculous ceiling paintings. But bouquets of fresh flowers near especially revered icons, competent monastic singing and reading gave the service a unique flavor.
Most of the sisters are city dwellers; Having settled in the village, they enthusiastically took up agricultural work: in the first spring they planted potatoes, dug beds for vegetables, got a goat and a cow, and built a barnyard over the summer. By autumn, the monastery already had its own subsidiary farm, providing it with natural village products. In 1995, an orchard was founded. A few years later they ventured to set up several hives. Today the monastery owns 18 hectares of fodder land, two gardens, a large vegetable garden, an apiary, and in the new barnyard there are three cows, a goat, a donkey, and chickens.
From the first days of its existence, the monastery began to collect a library, and from the very first days a theological seminar on a system of reports was introduced. It so happens that most sisters have an intellectual need, i.e. the desire to comprehend God not only with all the heart and soul, but also with all the mind (Matthew 22:37). Every year, from September to Easter, weekly classes are held in one of the theological disciplines: they studied the history of the Old and New Testaments, dogmatics, liturgy, the history of the Church, the history of the Russian Church, Christian anthropology, the history of monasticism, the history of Russian monasticism, in addition, the Greek language of the New Testament , icon painting.
In October 1996, construction began on a cell building with a kitchen, refectory, and cellars; six years later an extension was made to it with new cells, a large room for a library, a winter garden, and a medical office. But the sisters did not live in excellent conditions for long. On May 4, 2007, a fire in two hours destroyed all the works, eight thousand volumes of the library, property acquired over fourteen years; details on the page
People who find themselves in sorrowful circumstances, the poor, the elderly, and the lonely often turn to the monastery, and no one leaves without consolation. Those in need receive food, medicine, clothing, and spiritual advice.
During school summer and winter holidays, the monastery welcomes teenage girls who want to see monastic life from the inside. They live in the sisters' cell building, attend divine services, learn church reading, perform all possible obediences in the refectory, sewing workshop, and garden, and use books from the monastery library.
The monastery was founded at the temple in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1995. The temple itself was built in 1796 with the money of the widowed Major General Anna Vasilievna Pozdnyakova. Its architecture is an example of the Empire style. The temple has two altars, the main chapel is consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the second in honor of the holy unmercenaries and wonderworkers Cosmas and Damian of Rome.
After the revolution of 1917, the temple remained active until 1938, when its rector, Archimandrite Euphrosin (Fomin) and the chairman of the church council, Andrei Anokhin, were arrested and shot on a trumped-up case, and the elder Elena Kondratyeva was sentenced to 10 years in the camps. With the closure of the temple, all its property was confiscated, and the nearby orchard was cut down. During the period of fascist occupation, the Germans kept livestock in the church building.
In the 50s XX century the temple was opened. It was restored by priest Andrei Pavlikov, a retired colonel, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, who was awarded many awards. Father Andrey served in the church for 17 years. He had special care for the monastics who settled in the nearest villages from closed monasteries. Initially, services were held in a small chapel in honor of the unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, and then the main chapel was restored.
On February 28, 1972, Hieromonk Arkady (Afonin), a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, was appointed rector of the temple, who served there with a break from April 1, 1974 to September 1, 1975 until March 25, 1991, when the Holy Synod was appointed Bishop of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
With the blessing of Bishop Donat (Shchegolev) of Kaluga and Borovsk, Father Arkady began to create a female monastic community. He built a house at the temple in which the sisters’ cells were located. He invited experienced nuns who had taken monastic vows in the old monasteries to the created monastic community. The following settled in the community: nun Anastasia (Kuzmina), schema-nun Martha, monastic monk of Optina Meletia (Barmina), schema-nun Tikhona, nun Dorothea, nun Nikodima, nun Agnia, nun Ksenia, blind nun Julia, who was in the camps for several years, and others. Young sisters also came to the community, 3 of whom took monastic vows, and 4 took monastic vows.
With the opening of new monasteries and due to the advanced age of the sisters in the community, by the beginning of the 90s. only 4 nuns remained, and on April 4, 1993, with the blessing of Archbishop Clement, several nuns of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery were sent to strengthen the monastic community in Baryatino. The nun Theophila (Lepeshinskaya) was appointed as the elder sister. The community began to develop: new buildings were built, the number of nuns increased. On December 26, 1995, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, the monastic community was transformed into a convent - the Nativity of the Virgin Mary Hermitage.
magazine “Neskuchny Sad”.
Sometimes it is necessary to break away from the bustle of the world. But how difficult it is to do this! There is, however, one way. Those who have left the world - monks - most often leave the doors of their monasteries open for lay people, probably just so that we have somewhere to go in search of spiritual peace. On one of these open doors - the Mother of God Nativity maiden hermitage in the village of Baryatino, Kaluga region - I knocked with a request to be accepted for a week.
Theology with an agrarian slant
If a stranger appears on the threshold of your house and says that he will live with you, for example, for a week, while he will help you with the housework and pray with you, you will take him for a madman and, if he does not leave kindly, you will call an ambulance. If a pilgrim appears on the threshold of the monastery and declares the same thing, he is joyfully received, first of all they feed him, let him spend the night... Really, these monks are not of this world. Although it is still better to notify about your arrival by phone.
By human standards, the monastery should now be in transition: the monastery is fourteen years old. In 1993, five sisters of the Maloyaroslavets convent arrived in the village of Baryatino - a monastery with an agricultural focus was planned. However, in 1995, an independent convent was established here, nun Theophila (Lepeshinskaya) became abbess, and then abbess.
The monastery was created for a practical purpose: the village was dying out, and the once magnificent church, built in the 18th century, needed care. The temple, an example of the Empire style in architecture, is dedicated to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The second altar was consecrated in honor of the holy unmercenary doctors and wonderworkers Cosmas and Damian; The monastery contains a particle of the relics of these saints of God, who suffered in Rome in ancient times, but were revered both in Rus' and throughout the Orthodox world.
Once upon a time there was neither this shrine in the monastery nor the splendid decoration in the temple. For a long time there was not enough money to put the unplastered, soot-dark dome in order; the desolate cells in the house handed over to the community were rebuilt from scratch. It couldn't be easy. However, the next concern after the service was the library, vegetable garden and cowshed. How the nuns, mostly city dwellers, managed to provide themselves with the products of subsistence farming even in the early stages is beyond comprehension. At the same time, the books did not lie as dead weight: from the very first days they began to conduct a theological seminar. They study the history of the Old and New Testaments, dogmatics, liturgics, the history of the Church and monasticism, Christian anthropology, the Greek language of the New Testament, and iconography.
Other people's rules
The charter, that is, the rule, is present in every business as a kind of basis for any creativity and imagination. Every family, even a disorderly one, has its own traditions and routine: at a certain time they wake up, go to work, get ready... A monastery is a big family, and a harmonious routine is needed here. A pilgrim is included in this way of life, even if he has come for a short time. First of all, you will find out what time the service and meal begin, when you should come to this or that obedience, when you can rest.
Morning at the monastery. On the left is the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On the right is the unfinished building of the monastery library. Due to the crisis, construction had to be frozen
The charter also determines the order of worship - we didn’t come to the monastery for meals. Weekdays in Baryatino differ from holidays primarily in that the service is performed without a priest. In parish churches we usually do not hear the Midnight Office, Compline, or figurative. Here, getting up at dawn, you will enter a quiet temple, where an elderly nun is already lighting the lamps, and soon the usual morning prayers, the seventeenth kathisma, the amazing “Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight” and the canons to the Sweetest Jesus, the Mother of God and the Guardian Angel, the Clock and Fine Art will begin to sound. . It would take a long time to list, but in the end there is not so much: the charter is permeated through and through with mercy towards the weak, but does not allow him to weaken at all, and does not allow the strong to ascend in ascetic zeal.
On Sunday, the service will be little different from the parish service - several people will come from the village, some will come from the regional center, and some from Kaluga... And for Peter and Paul in the church it will even be a little crowded, but Abbess Theophila will bless everyone, greeting by name.
Queen Baryatino
In the morning and evening, sisters and pilgrims kneel before the main shrine of the monastery - the Lomovskaya Icon of the Mother of God. June 25, the day of honoring this icon, becomes a special celebration here. Why exactly this date is unknown: maybe it was on this day that someone noticed two tablets floating along the Ugra River, connected them - and with amazement saw the image of the Mother of God in a crown, with the Royal Child with a scepter in his hand. It is not even known in what century this happened, but it is likely that in pre-Nikonian times, even though the letter is non-canonical. The icon survived both the period of persecution in the twentieth century and the bombings of the Great Patriotic War.
The monastery also remembers another discovery of a shrine: in 1997, the temple was robbed, and only on June 25, 1999, the miraculous image returned to the monastery - a familiar priest, seeing it for sale, bought it and returned it to the sisters. There has never been such a holiday as on that day here... During the time of orphanhood, the sisters compiled a troparion, kontakion, magnification, even stichera and canon for the Mother of God, which were sung for the first time on that memorable day.
Many miraculous healings are forever included in the monastery chronicle. People go and go to the Merciful Intercessor.
Starting point - fire
In 1996, construction began on a cell building with a kitchen, a refectory, a large room for a library, a winter garden, and a medical office. But the sisters did not live in excellent conditions for long. On May 4, 2007, a fire in two hours destroyed all the works, eight thousand volumes of the library, and property acquired over fourteen years. “We became monks - we have nothing,” the sisters said then.
Since then they have rebuilt - just as good people consoled us after the fire. The refectory is now larger and better than before, and the paintings in it will be remembered by any guest of the monastery. But the crisis did not allow the completion of the second building, so there is still no library, and the books are in the attic of the cell building: it is already unbearable to live without using what was donated and bought for two years.
Until now, chronology here is based on fire. In the kitchen they are looking for some special curved knife, convenient for cutting fish, until they remember: it was the same “before.” Thank God, none of the sisters were injured in the fire. Several cats died and people still feel sorry for them.
Commemoration with comments
Maybe at the evening service they will also give you a memorial to read. A very touching list: many of the names are accompanied by explanations in parentheses. Often these are surnames: about the health of the servants of God Dimitry (Medvedev), Vladimir (Putin), Georgy (Luzhkov) and others like them in “her authorities and army”; about the health, for example, of Lyudmila (Moscow, icons), Boris (father of so-and-so), Vasily ($7,000). And I, diligently reading the memorial, could not help but think that for those living in the monastery, each name evokes a living image of a person, so that pronouncing the names turns into a heartfelt prayer for the suffering, for friends, for donors.
Sweet making
From the window of the room, that is, the cell where I was lodged, I saw a bright yellow field not far away; Having reached it, I heard a smooth, businesslike hum: it turned out that this was a meadow where bees from the monastery apiary were working. Do you know how wonderfully a beekeeper’s hat with a protective net, worn right over the apostle’s cap, suits a nun?
Bees are not only flowers and honey, they are also wax, and wax is candles. “Only O.’s mother adds cinders to fresh wax, and so the candles turn out dark, so we only put them on weekdays, and on holidays we use store-bought ones,” complains I.’s mother. She asks me why I give tea without sugar. I drink: “It’s immediately obvious that you’ve recently entered the monastery. If you live longer, you’ll start eating sugar...” It’s strange, but this “prophecy” is memorable. What is so difficult about a monastery that you can’t live without sugar? Don't know…
But I know that here they don’t try to squeeze the impossible out of a person, they don’t “break” them with backbreaking work (and you often have to read “horror stories” about women’s cloisters). They explain a little embarrassedly: there is only enough greenery from their garden in the summer, but mother buys it for the winter - you can’t feed yourself with women’s labor.
Obediences in baryatin style
- Well, what kind of obedience do we have? - Mother O gives a “tour” of the monastery. - Mainly self-service. Kitchen, cleaning, a little gardening... Will you cut some green onions after dinner?
“What’s there to talk about, all I have to do is chop the onions,” I think, but when I see a bowl full of lush greens, I understand that I’ll stay in the kitchen for an hour and a half or two.
Picking strawberries in the garden is a real pleasure: even slightly spoiled berries are not suitable for the table, they can be sent straight to your mouth. Strawberries flavored with conversation.
“I had a very good French teacher,” says E.’s mother. “I already thought that I would speak like the French themselves.” But she didn’t have time - she went to the monastery.
Specific care in Baryatino is about cats. Feeding 64 little animals (they throw them up!) every day is a special obedience, and more than once I watched A.’s mother walk across the yard with a large saucepan, and a meowing crowd ran after her. I’ll also share my discovery: fish giblets and fins from the kitchen go not to cats, but to chickens...
A week in the monastery will also enrich you with some new skills. For example, how to cut a fish called catfish? Now I can do it. True, they say I was lucky - I got a carcass weighing only five kilograms. At least somehow it was possible to move her. And they can be much larger.
Literary acquisition
- Not talking about Dickens again! - exclaims A.’s mother, tripping over a kitten named Dickens, and everyone who is working in the kitchen at this time understands that this is a game with a quote from Kharms. It seems that reading is one of the most important obediences here. The day after the fire, the abbess bought clothes, shoes, dishes, basins and... several volumes of poetry to console the sisters.
And the monastery website, where new articles and photographs appear regularly, amazes with the liveliness of the language and subtle taste. Here we talk about history and plans for the future, about everyday life and Orthodox holidays, about unbookish consolations from the Lord... For example, one night a stork, a disheveled winged pilgrim, spent the night on the cross of the temple, and I saw it not only on the website.
Don't know; Perhaps the combination of a good education with the unsurpassed poetry (and true poetry is devoid of sweetness) of the surrounding landscapes gives the effect of a “sabbatical”? A week at the monastery means, for example, seven completely different sunsets.
Let me remind you that the service to the Lomovskaya Icon of the Mother of God was composed right here. It seems that hymnography is one of the highest areas of literature.