Savior Transfiguration Monastery (Yaroslavl)
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The Savior Transfiguration Monastery ( Russian Спасо-Преображенский монастырь ) is a former Orthodox male monastery in Yaroslavl , which existed from the 12th to the 18th century. The monastery complex is located on the left bank of the Kotorosl River near its confluence with the Volga . It is considered one of the most important museum complexes in the city and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the old town of Yaroslavl since 2005 .
In the 18th century a manuscript of the old Russian igor song was found in the monastery .
history
The Savior Transfiguration Monastery was probably founded in the 12th century. It was at the gates of the city of Yaroslavl, which had been founded only a few decades earlier. It also had a defensive function and therefore had a palisade wall from its early days. All buildings were originally made of wood.
The monastery was first mentioned in writing in 1216, when the first spiritual seminary of northeastern Rus was founded here. This moved to Rostov in 1218 . From 1216 to 1224 the first wooden Savior Transfiguration Cathedral was built.
The monastery played a central role for the city and the principality of Yaroslavl as early as the 13th and 14th centuries . Among other things, it served as a burial place for the princes and their families, the clergy and the city's noble citizens. The monastery had become very wealthy thanks to generous donations and gifts from the richest houses in the Yaroslavl region.
As early as the 13th century, the monastery had an extensive library with numerous manuscripts in Church Slavonic ( Old Russian ) and Greek .
In 1501 a major fire destroyed considerable parts of the wooden structure of the monastery. New stone buildings were erected, some of which have been preserved to this day, such as the Savior Transfiguration Cathedral, which was completed in 1516.
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After Yaroslavl lost its status as an independent principality in the middle of the 15th century and became part of the Grand Duchy of Moscow , the Savior Transfiguration Monastery gained notoriety and recognition beyond the Yaroslavl region and served as a place of pilgrimage for the Moscow princes and later also the Russian tsars . Towards the end of the 16th century, donations made the monastery so rich that it owned areas of its own around Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Moscow.
In the time of turmoil at the beginning of the 16th century, the monastery was able to repel a siege of several weeks by Polish-Lithuanian troops thanks to its newly built stone protective wall . A few years later, the monastery fortifications were rebuilt and largely retained their current shape.
In 1747 one of the first seminars for priests in the Russian Empire was opened in the Monastery of the Savior and the Transfiguration .
In the 1790s, a manuscript of the old Russian igor song was found in the library .
At the end of the 18th century, the residence of the Yaroslavl Metropolitan , which had previously been in Rostov , was moved to Yaroslavl and settled within the walls of the monastery. At the same time the monastery was closed, but the seminary remained there until the 20th century. Even in the 19th century, new structures were occasionally erected within the monastery walls and old buildings restored or rebuilt.
A few years after the October Revolution of 1917, both the metropolitan residence and the seminary in Yaroslavl were dissolved. The former monastery has been converted into a museum since the 1920s.
Since 1959 it has been the main part of the Yaroslavl State Museum Reserve . As part of the Yaroslavl old town, it has been protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site since 2005 .
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Attractions
The architectural structure of the Convent of the Transfiguration of Christ is typical of a medieval Russian monastery: Behind the stone monastery walls, which originally had a protective function and are therefore equipped with several watchtowers, there is an ensemble of sacred and secular buildings, the oldest of which are date back to the early 16th century, when stone was first used instead of wood. The main church of the monastery, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Christ ( Спасо-Преображенский собор ) deserves to be mentioned . This was completed in 1516 on the site of a previously burned wooden cathedral, making it the oldest surviving structure in Yaroslavl today. Architecturally, the cathedral was designed in a style common at the time for monumental church buildings and therefore has similarities, for example, to the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin . The first watchtower of the monastery, which was later named the Holy Gate ( Святые ворота ) and now rises above the main entrance gate of the monastery ensemble , also dates from around the same time .
The refectory , the Church of the Nativity of Christ ( Рождественская церковь ) and the bell tower , which today serves as a viewing platform, also date from the early 16th century . Many of the buildings at that time were lavishly painted inside with frescoes in the 1560s .
Other attractions of the monastery include several buildings from the 19th century, including the Church of the Yaroslavl Miracle Workers ( Церковь Ярославских Чудотворцев ) built in 1831 . This was built directly on the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Christ and is dedicated to the three Yaroslavl saints, whose relics were found on the site of the church in the 15th century. In addition, the museum complex houses several themed expositions on the history of the city, such as an exhibition from the former treasury of the monastery. An unusual and very popular attraction of the museum is the enclosure with the she- bear " Mascha ", who was found in 1988 as a cub in a forest near Vologda and has lived behind the walls of the Convent of the Transfiguration since the early 1990s.
Web links
- Official website of the Yaroslavl Museum Reserve (Russian, English )
- History of the monastery on the site otdihinfo.ru (Russian)
Coordinates: 57 ° 37 ′ 17 ″ N , 39 ° 53 ′ 20 ″ E