Female St. Iveron Monastery (Rostov-on-Don) and its history

At the beginning of the 20th century, on the bank of the Temernik River near the city of Rostov-on-Don, a women's monastery was founded , which in a short time became one of the main spiritual centers of the region. He was destined to endure all the misfortunes that fell to the share of Orthodox relics during the years of the God-fighters, and now, at last, the former monastic life revived within its walls. About him is our story.

Gift of a pious merchant

In 1903, a wealthy Rostov merchant Samuel Fedorov donated a significant land plot near the city of Nakhichevan to the Ekaterinoslav Eparchy. He intended to create a female monastic monastery.

The benefactor prompted to such a generous gift, except for the care of saving his own soul, and also the desire of his sixteen-year-old daughter to leave the vain world and forever to shut himself up within the walls of the monastery. A letter has survived, in which the Rostov-on-Don diocese applied to the Holy Synod and asked for permission to open it.

Beginning of the monastery construction

In the same year, after the execution of all legal formalities, the future monastery received official status, and construction began. It is for sure not known whether the merchant's daughter fulfilled her intention to get a haircut in a nun or, having changed her mind, married successfully, having pleased the chosen one with copious handicrafts, but the women's Holy Iveron Monastery (Rostov-on-Don), money-based dad, began its existence.

In the people, his first time was called none other than Fedorov, after the surname of the benefactor who financed the construction. To his credit, it should be noted that, continuing the commenced, the merchant built on the territory of the monastery the first stone church that stood next to the wooden chapel erected before, and ordered a list for it from the miraculous Iver Icon of the Mother of God, from which it was given the name of the monastery.

Life of the monastery in pre-revolutionary years

The female St. Iversky monastery (Rostov-on-Don) quickly expanded, and by 1905 there were fifty sisters in it headed by abbess Abbess Anastasia. The generosity of merchant Fedorov became a good example for other donors, whose means were built a number of buildings, including the abbot and sister cells.

A significant event in the life of the monastery occurred in August 1914, when, returning from a trip to the Caucasus, he was visited by Emperor Nicholas II with his son and heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei. Entering the vaults of the recently completed temple, they bowed to its main shrine, and defended the Divine Liturgy.

During the First World War, the sisters of the monastery committed an act of truly Christian charity. They were taken to be brought up by orphan girls brought from occupied Poland. In the monastery, they were not only surrounded by warmth and care, but also had the opportunity to study at school. Their stay there continued until the early twenties.

The cloister, transformed into a farmer

The dramatic events that engulfed Russia in 1917, in all their fullness, also fell upon the Saint Iveron Monastery (Rostov-on-Don). However, thanks to the wisdom of his superior Mother Superior Anastasia, the monastery managed to survive for another ten years. The sisters registered their religious community as a farmer, and this saved her from immediate closure.

In those years, the residents of the monastery developed extensive economic activity. Hard-working by nature (most nuns came from peasant families), they in a short time discovered cattle and poultry houses, a bakery, created an apiary and planted an orchard, which was not equal in the district. To top it all off, they built dams, where they planted fish and planted a rose garden.

Years of spiritual darkness and desolation

The end of this prosperous economy came in 1929. On the wave of another state campaign against religion, the St. Iversky Monastery (Rostov-on-Don) was closed. The sisters were dispersed, and his abbess and several of his closest assistants were tried, and sentenced to six years of camps, they were sent to Siberia.

All the economy of the monastery, which was created every year by the hands of its inhabitants, was devastated, and in a short time the territory of the once flourishing monastery turned into a grassy wasteland, in the midst of which the deserted church, devoid of domes and bell towers, despondingly rose.

Revival of a desecrated shrine

At the end of the eighties, new perestroika trends were gaining momentum in the country, and the Rostov-on-Don diocese applied to the government authorities for the return of the monastery territory and the buildings that remained on it to the Church.

When, finally, after a lengthy bureaucratic delay, the issue was resolved positively, and the relics were returned to the Church, the process of its restoration began. By 1996, when the head of the monastery was put Abbess Rakhil (Kovaleva), the main restoration work was completed.

The throne of the lower floor of the church was consecrated, and divine services were resumed in it. With the arrival of the new abbess, the reconstruction of the entire building was completed, and its main shrine, the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, took its place.

Icon Description

The holy image stored in Rostov on the Don is a list from the miraculous icon located on Athos, and dated to the 11th-12th century. Art historians refer it to the type of the Mother of God called Hodegetria, which in Greek means the Guide. The Blessed Virgin is depicted with the Infant Jesus sitting on Her lap. Holding on His left hand, right, She points to him as the only way that leads to Eternal Life. The right hand of Her Eternal Son is raised in a blessing gesture.