Conception Monastery: risen from the ashes

2024 Author: Harold Hamphrey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

Sights of the capital - the operating women's monasteries of Moscow. Founded many centuries ago, they still give shelter to nuns and are centers of pilgrimage for believers.

One of the most famous among these cultural monuments is the Conception Monastery. Moscow has repeatedly witnessed the miracles that took place in it.

Women come to the monastery with a terrible diagnosis - infertility, praying to conceive and bear a child. Having knelt before the icon of the Mother of God, having repented of sins, having prayed in the church of the Holy Orthodox Anna, women miraculously recover, give birth to he althy, strong children. One of the women said that she went through 8 IVF procedures, but the doctors could not help. Only by coming to the monastery and gaining faith in recovery, she was able to become a happy mother.

The monastery helps not only barren women - there is an almshouse that provides shelter for the elderly and care for sick nuns.

The Conception Monastery dates back to 1360. It was at this time that Alexy of Moscow, a well-known saint of that time, founded the church and founded a monastery under it. It is believed that the half-sisters of Alexy became its first inhabitants: abbess Juliana and a simple nun who bore the name Evpraksia.

In 1547 the monastery burned down. It was not restored, but moved to another place. However, a small community of monks remained to live on the ashes, which restored the burnt buildings. 40 years later, the Conception Monastery began to function again.

In 1612 the monastery was again destroyed, this time during the Polish invasion, and was rebuilt again some time later.

Gradually the complex begins to increase. Several new cathedrals appear, and for the almshouse, which has operated at the monastery since the beginning of its history, a new building is being built with its own temple in honor of the descent of the Holy Spirit. On the site of old dilapidated buildings, the Nativity Cathedral rises, and new and new residential and outbuildings are growing throughout the territory.

In 1927, the Soviets issued a Decree to close the monastery. Zachatievsky Monastery ceased to exist. The walls surrounding the territory of the monastery were destroyed, temples and buildings were destroyed. A school was opened on the territory of the monastery. Some icons were saved and transferred to other churches, but most of the works of ancient icon painters disappeared without a trace.

The Conception Monastery began to be restored only in the 1960s. However, instead of reconstructingthe ruins here built the pool "Moscow" - this was the second desecration of the holy monastery.

Finally, in the 1990s, the pool was demolished: it was decided to restore the monastery. And work began to boil. First, several buildings were restored, then divine services began, and the sisterhood was given the status of a stauropegial monastery, independent of the diocese.

The procession took place, during which the Staff of the last abbess and some icons were returned to the monastery. In 2001, the first nuns of the monastery, Juliana and Eupraxia, were made saints.

Now services are held in several churches operating on the territory: the Conception of the Righteous Anna, the Nativity of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Savior Not Made by Hands, etc.