Monasteries (entry)

Categories / Religion. Church/Monasteries and Convents
MONASTERIES, there were four monasteries in Petrograd (two women’s convents and two men’s monasteries) by 1917, and 42 metochions, which functioned according to monastery regulations. The oldest of them is the Alexander Nevsky Lavra which had two metochions of smaller size: Kinovia on the right bank of the Neva river (18-22 Oktyabrskaya Embankment) and Serafimo-Antoniev hermitage in Luzhsky district of St. Petersburg Province. In 1732, the Holy Trinity & St. Sergius Hermitage was founded near Strelna. Lavra and hermitage cemeteries became traditional burial places for the St. Petersburg aristocracy. Under Empress Elizaveta Petrovna the first Novodevichy Сonvent was founded at the former Smolny Court, which was closed in the early 19th century. Instead of the former convent, in 1845, another Novodevichy Convent was founded on Moskovskoe Highway, which for half a century was the only convent in St. Petersburg. In the late 19th century, this convent established two metochions: in Vokhonov and in Elizavetino (in the district of Tsarskoe Selo of St. Petersburg Province). In 1900, Fr. John of Kronstadt broke the ground for the new convent of St. John, in St. Petersburg on the Karpovka River Embankment. Before 1917, the majority of monks of the Eparchy were concentrated in Petrograd, and the city was a centre of monastic life. In the 1920s, all the monasteries became labour communes; in 1932, the monks who had remained were exiled. In 1989, the St. John Convent was revived; later the hermitage, the Lavra and Novodevichy Convent were reopened. By 2003, all the old monasteries were functioning again.

References: Антонов В. В., Кобак А. В. Святыни Санкт-Петербурга: Ист.-церков. энцикл. СПб., 1994. Т. 1. С. 29-75; Монастыри Санкт-Петербургской епархии: Справ. паломника. СПб., 2000.

V. V. Antonov. Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress
Sergiyev (Kronshtadsky) Ioann Ilyich, the Saint
Karpovka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Moskovskoe Freeway/Saint Petersburg, city
Oktyabrskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 22
Oktyabrskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 18
Oktyabrskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 20
Антонов В. В., Кобак А. В. Святыни Санкт-Петербурга: Ист.-церков. энцикл. СПб., 1994
Монастыри Санкт-Петербургской епархии: Справ. паломника. СПб., 2000 Alexander Nevsky Lavra
Holy Trinity & St. Sergius Hermitage
Lazarevskaya Burial Vault
Novodevichy Convent
St. John Convent