_The Convents and Monasteries_
"These are the haunts of meditation,--these
The scenes where ancient bards th' inspiring breath
Esctatic felt; and from the world retired,
Conversed with angels and immortal forms,
On gracious errands bent."--THOMSON.
Russian monks all belong to one order, that based on the rule of St
Basil the Great, practically the only order of "black" clergy recognised
by the Eastern Church. The first monastery in Russia was founded by St
Anthony, a Russian who, after living some time on Mount Athos, returned
to Kiev, and there, in 1055, conjunctly with St Theodosius, established
the Pecherski Monastery, on the same rule as that of the Studemi--one of
the strictest of the clerical institutions in Constantinople. The
Pecherski still ranks highest among the monasteries of Russia. The one
of greatest importance in Moscow, though not the most ancient, is that
of the Miracles (Chudov) founded in the fourteenth century by St Alexis,
the Metropolitan. It stands within the Kremlin, between the two Imperial
palaces, on a spot which long ago was a part of the enclosure around the
dwelling of the Tartar bashkak, or "resident." At the time when one
Chani-Bek was khan, his wife, Taidula, fell ill and was healed by
Alexis, to whom out of gratitude she presented her gold signet ring with
its effigy of the Great Dragon, and a site for the Monastery of the
Miracles. The first building was erected in 1365, and the monastery long
served as the residence of the primates of Moscow; it has been many
times destroyed and rebuilt; the present building dates from the reign
of the first Romanof, and, at the time of writing, is in course of
extensive alteration. Passing before the Church, with the curious paper
ikon outside, a large gateway will be found in the angle where the
Chudov buildings abut against those of the smaller Imperial palace;
passing through this, the visitor will find himself in a large
Courtyard; the Church of St Michael is on the right, a small railed-in
cemetery among the trees on the left. The Monastery, a mean,
dilapidated, straggling two-storeyed building, extends almost completely
around the quadrangle; the chief rooms, on the _bel-étage_, communicate
with a long outside covered gallery, closely resembling the yard of an
old London inn, which is reached by the perron in the western corner.
The Church of St Michael, the Archistratigus, was built conjointly with
the Monastery in 1365, rebuilt in 1504, and later restored in its
primitive style, so has preserved even more than any other church in
Moscow the original character of Muscovite ecclesiastic architecture.
The interior is well worth seeing, but access is not easy; the best time
is after early matins, which are celebrated about thrice weekly at 7
A.M.
The frescoes are very primitive, and for Moscow, original. The
old-fashioned low ikonostas is of a type common to "wooden Russia"; the
ancient ikons call only for the attention of the student, but on the
High Altar is a tabernacle in the form of a church with twelve domes
which has wider interest. It is the work of Remizov in the reign of
Mikhail Theodorovich. Within the courtyard, traces of Tartar graves have
been found; and the cemetery contains the tombs of Edeger--the last
"Tsar" of Kazan, 1565--and of many Moscow families, as the Trubetskis,
Kovanskis, Sherbatovs, etc. The state rooms are still used by the head
of the Church in Moscow; they look out towards Ivan Veliki, immediately
above the little window at which the Holy Bread is sold. Although the
monastery has been the scene of many important events in connection with
the history of the Church and of Moscow--it was here that Maxim, the
Greek, studied, and Latin was first taught, 1506--there is nothing
either in the refectory or common rooms connected with them, for the
monastery was erected during the plague riots of 1771 and spoiled by the
French. The church of the Patriarch Alexis is entered from the Tsar's
Square through a portico, of a pseudo-Gothic style, designed by Kasakov
in the eighteenth century, but the church itself was constructed in
1686, and the remains of St Alexis the Metropolitan then conveyed there
in the presence of the Tsarevna Sophia and the boy-Tsars Ivan V. and
Peter I. It occupies the site of an earlier church founded in 1483, and
contains the incorruptible remains of the Saint. Alexis, the
wonder-worker, was descended from a boyard family named Pleskov. Born in
1292, he passed twenty-two years of his life in Moscow, a student of the
Bogo-yavlenski Monastery; after admission he was for twelve years one of
the household of the Archbishop, and later became bishop of Vladimir,
and Metropolitan of Kief.
His care of the two child princes of Moscow, his direction of Dmitri
Donskoi and sturdy championship of Moscow, and his efforts to maintain
its supremacy, endeared him to the people. When he died in 1378, at the
age of eighty-five, he was buried within the Chudov monastery he had
founded; there in 1439 his remains were discovered undecayed, and
miraculous qualities attributed to them. In 1519, Balaam the
Metropolitan informed Vasili Ivanovich, then the reigning Grand-Duke,
that the blind in visiting the tomb of Alexis were restored to sight.
Since that date the memory of Alexis has been held in highest reverence
by the orthodox, and in the public esteem he ranks with St Peter, first
among the Patron Saints of Moscow. Consequently the church is one of the
richest; it was spoiled by the French, who cast the silver shrine of the
saint into the melting pot, and his _moshi_ were found under a heap of
lumber after the flight of Napoleon. Much of the decoration is new, but
in the style of the time of Alexis Mikhailovich, of which the pavement
is particularly characteristic. The new shrine is of silver, so are the
royal doors of the sanctuary; for them some 420 lbs were needed, and the
tabernacle, the chandeliers and the elaborate ikonostas are all of
sterling metal, and there is a magnificent archiepiscopal mitre
presented by Prince Potemkin. The original coffin of the saint, is
preserved in a glass case near the silver shrine, and by it are kept the
identical pastoral staff he used in Moscow, and other personal relics.
Among these are manuscript copies of the New Testament executed by the
saint, as also his holograph will. The library has some hundreds of old
illuminated and other manuscript books, including a psalter of the
thirteenth century, and a collection of old printed books of the
seventeenth century. This church, the adjoining chapel of the
Annunciation, and the monastery are all closely associated with the
introduction of pedagogy to Moscow; it was here that the first
scholastic seminary for priests was founded, and later an academy was
developed. It became customary for parents to bring their children
hither before their entry to any school, in order that the blessing of
St Alexis might be asked, and some peasants of the village at one time
owned by the saint make a pilgrimage to his shrine on his name day, and
pray for their "Lord." The sacristy has a valuable collection of old
plate; the crosses, panagies, mitres, vases, goblets, etc., are
remarkable for their beauty and rich decoration, and second only to
those of the collection in the sacristy of the Patriarchs.
Naturally the Monastery of the Miracles is closely associated with the
more renowned of the wonder-working ikons of Russia. The most celebrated
now existing there are: the trimorphic paper ikon of the Holy Trinity,
that of St Nicholas the wonder-worker, and that of St Anastasia. In
1771, when Moscow was decimated by the plague, it was believed that the
ikon of the Virgin (Bogoloobski) at the Varvarka Vorot wrought
miraculous cures. It was so thronged by worshippers and the pestilent
stricken that, as a measure of precaution, the Archbishop Ambrose
ordered its immediate removal to the Chudov monastery, but the maddened
people gathered in the Kremlin and threatened that they would not leave
a stone of the monastery standing unless the ikon was at once restored.
The Archbishop was forced to give way. The next day he was dragged by
the mob from the Donskoi monastery where he was hiding and massacred by
the enraged populace. This was on the 17th September: from that date the
plague declined and the daily death-rate of 700 returned to the normal
average with the advent of winter.
Flanking the eastern wall of the Chudov Monastery are the buildings of
the Convent of the Ascension (Vossnesenski), the entrance to which is
from the large square of the Kremlin near the Redeemer Gate. There are
some indications that this nunnery is of greater antiquity than 1393,
the date usually assigned its foundation. Eudoxia, the wife of Dmitri
Donskoi, organised the institution, and, after taking the veil there,
ordered that it was to be her place of sepulture also. The buildings
were destroyed in 1483--ninety years after their erection--again in
1547, 1571, 1612, 1701, and last of all on the great fire of All Saints'
Day, 1737. Its successive rebuildings are due to the great veneration of
the orthodox for the tombs of their ancestors, and from 1407 its
cemetery ranked first as the place of sepulture for the consorts of the
rulers of Muscovy; some thirty-five were interred within its walls
between 1407 and 1738.
"It is said that when Eudoxia retired to the convent in 1389,
although she observed the appointed fasts rigorously and within the
walls wore heavy weights and performed arduous penances, she still
took great interest in the affairs of the outer world, and when
visiting dressed in rich robes befitting her former state. This
gave rise to much scandal, which she refuted by exhibiting to her
accusers the effects of her self-imposed penances. When Tokhtamysh
destroyed the building in 1393 she not only devoted herself to the
task of founding a better community, but did so much work among the
sick and indigent that she more than retrieved her character, being
worshipped almost as a saint and canonised under her adopted name
of Euphrosina, revered through many generations."
The cells are mean, and the low plain façade not unlike those of English
alms-houses of the eighteenth century. It was in this nunnery that Maria
Mniszek was housed prior to her marriage with the false Dmitri, and
here, too, that Maria Nagoi was forced to recognise the same impostor as
her own murdered son. The Cathedral of the Ascension, like that of St
Michael in the Chudov, is of a primitive type, preserving many of the
characteristics of the original building erected by the Tsar Vasili
Ivanovich in 1518; the five domes have not, however, the common bulbous
cupolas, these resemble inverted cups--an original type. The interior
has the customary four pillars supporting the central dome; there is an
ikonostas with four tiers reaching to the arched roof. Of the sacred
pictures the most remarkable are that of the Virgin and that of the
Ascension; there is also a curious one in the north chapel dedicated to
Mary the Mother of the Afflicted.
The tombs of the Grand Duchesses are arranged along the frescoed walls,
north, west and south; some are of the white stone used in the earliest
buildings in Moscow, others of brick; formerly the portraits of those
interred were painted on the walls over their tombs, now many are
covered with splendidly worked palls of native design. The remains of
Eudoxia (St Euphrosina) are in a modern shrine of silver, replacing that
taken by the French; on the right, near the south wall, is the tomb of
another Eudoxia (Shtrchnev), the wife of Mikhail Theodorovich; then come
the tombs of the Miloslavski and Naryshkin, wives of his son the Tsar
Alexis, and the last tomb of all is that of another Eudoxia, the much
tortured first wife of Peter the Great. Four of the six, or more, wives
of Ivan the Terrible also lie here. In the sacristy among many rich
relics are two exquisitely decorated copies of the gospels; the enamel
work and enrichment with gems is the most characteristic of the Russian
art handicrafts. Not less excellent are the two golden processional
crucifixes presented by the Tsar Michael. Such is the summer church of
the convent, to which there is a grand ceremonial procession on Palm
Sunday, and one on the second Sunday after Trinity to commemorate the
great fire of 1737.
The winter church, dedicated to St Michael, is the chapel of Honour of
St Theodore of Persia and was built in the eighteenth century only. In
addition to a much venerated ikon of the virgin, painted in 1739, there
is preserved one of the greatest antiquities of Moscow--a bas relief
representing St George the Conqueror (Pobiedonostzev), the head
uncovered, which originally was one of the decorations of the Redeemer
Gate near by. It was transferred thence to the Church of St George,
which was destroyed by the fire of 1737, a conflagration that threatened
the convent also, but was stayed by the miraculous ikon of the Virgin of
Kazan, now placed in the adjoining new church of St Catherine the
Martyr. This is a modern building on the site of a fine old church of
the seventeenth century, and of a Russified-Gothic style serves to show,
from an artistic point of view, how disastrous is the attempt to combine
native designs with those of the west. On the ground floor of the
western range of buildings are the ovens, etc., where the Holy Bread is
prepared, and the nuns of the convent are celebrated throughout Russia
for the excellence of their work with the needle and brush, their copies
of the ikons of these churches being in particular request.
The monasteries outside the Kremlin have much the character of small
fortified towns, and are the stronger and, architecturally, the more
interesting the greater the distance at which they are situated from the
town. To visit them, drive out to the Simonov--four miles from the
centre of the town--and pass the Krutitski Vorot and the Novo Spasski;
the Spasso-Andronievski and the Pokrovski on the return. On the south
side of the river to the Danilovski and the Donskoi; to the west the
Zachatievski and Novo Devichi. The others, of minor interest
are:--Monasteries of St Nicholas, Epiphany, Znamenski, Petrovski,
Srietenka, and Alexis; Convents: St Nikita, Rojdestvenka, and Strastnoi.
SIMONOV MONASTERY
St Sergius founded the monastery in 1370, but it was not moved to its
present site on a hill commanding the Moskva until twenty years later.
It educated St Jonah in the fifteenth century, and when he became
Metropolitan it increased in importance, but was later surpassed by the
Troitsa, and although it owned 12,000 souls--male serfs--in the
eighteenth century, it has never attained the leading position, nor even
that expected of it. The present walls were built during the reign of
Theodore I. but, finished in 1591, they could not keep out the Poles,
who completely sacked the monastery in 1612. It is a line, strong
looking, dreamy old place, somewhat dilapidated and overgrown with
verdure. The wall is half a mile long, commanded by wonderful spire-like
towers, some 130 feet high, crowned with two-storeyed domed watch rooms,
which look like huge dovecots. There is a covered rampart walk all
round, and from the tower near the river, a subterranean passage to the
Lizin Prud, a holy well at one time much visited by the sick who had
faith in its miraculous healing properties. Some six churches are within
its walls, one the Cathedral of the Assumption, a massive building,
consecrated in 1405, and having a somewhat bizarre appearance, its
façade, in the Byzantine style, being also painted in three colours to
represent quadrangular facets. It is a building quite foreign to
Muscovite style; reminiscent rather of the old country churches of
Portugal. The ikon of greatest celebrity is that of God the Father,
richly decorated, and once, it is said, blessed by St Sergius, when it
was carried with the troops of Dmitri against the Tartars under Mamai.
[Illustration: SIMONOV MONASTYR]
A Moscow merchant defrayed the cost of the great belfry, 330 feet high,
and under the refectory is buried the renowned Field-Marshall Bruce; the
sacristy is rich in vestments and some ornamental work of the Tsar
Alexis's _Masterskaya_ in the Kremlin. The most famous inmate was Simeon
Bekbulatov the converted Tsar of Kazan, whom Ivan Groznoi made Tsar of
Moscow for twelve months; his tomb will be shown. The charm of the
Simonov is derived from its stillness, its out of the world air, its
roominess, the matured trees, the ample orchard, the long rampart walk,
the excellent views of Moscow, the many quaint nooks near the old
stores, the grateful shade of pleasant bosquets and the orderly
negligence that suggests contentment--an ideal home for dreamers, for
cheery mysticism and the inception of unhurried philosophies.
THE NOVO SPASSKI
The new monastery of the Saviour, so called because in the fifteenth
century removed from the Kremlin to its present site, is pleasantly
situated near the Moskva river not far from the Krasnoe Kholmski
bridge. Its walls were of wood until the invasion of Devlet Ghiree,
after which an attempt appears to have been made to turn all the
outlying monasteries into fortresses for the better protection of
Moscow. One peculiarity of the Spasski Monastyr is that the towers which
flank the wall are all different, one is pentagonal, one round, one
hexagonal, and so others vary--some are squat, others have tapering
spires from the towers; the belfry is 220 feet high. Its claim to
greatness is not due to the spirited defence it made to the Polish
attack, but to the fact that within its Cathedral of the
Transfiguration, one of the five churches within the walls, is a picture
"_Neruko-tvorenni_," not made with hands. "In the year 1645, in the
town of Khlinov, in the porch of the Church of the Trinity, before the
image of our Saviour not made with hands, Peter Palkin, blind three
years, stood and worshipped and miraculously received his sight." The
Tsar Alexis ordered the picture to be brought to Moscow for the Spasski
Monastery, and a copy of it to be sent to Khlinov, or Viatka. The church
is also adorned with a set of fresco portraits illustrating the
genealogy of the Tsars of Moscow, from Olga to Alexis: corresponding
therewith, the portraits of the Kings of Israel. Behind the ikonostas
are some extraordinary mural paintings of the Tsars Michael and Alexis,
founders of the cathedral. The Church of the Protection, to the south of
the cathedral, was built in 1673 to the memory of the Patriarch
Philaret, and a third church, near the cells of the monks, was built in
1652 by Nicholas Cherkassky, to whose family Moscow owes several fine
churches. The monastery was the favourite burying place of such noble
Moscow families as the Yaroslavskis, Gagarins, Sherbatevs, Naryshkins
and Romanofs, whose ancestors are mostly interred in a crypt here, the
last being Vasili Yurivich Zakharin.
The monastery of St Andronievski was founded by St Alexis the
metropolitan who made a vow, when in a storm at sea during his voyage to
Constantinople. The relics of St Andronie are preserved in a silver
shrine. All these monasteries were pillaged and profaned by the French,
the Andronievski suffered perhaps more than the others since there some
monks were shot.
DONSKOI MONASTERY
This monastery is in no way connected with Dmitri Donskoi but owes
its name to a picture of the Virgin Mary, presented by the Don
Cossacks (Kazak = soldier) after the great victory over
Khazi-Ghiree and his army of 150,000 Mongols advancing against
Moscow in 1591: they were repulsed by the army raised by Boris
Godunov and the miraculous intervention of the ikon of the
Cossacks, and the grateful Theodore built the monastery on the
field of their defeat as a fit shrine for the ikon, which had been
set up as the standard of the defenders of Moscow. A church pageant
on August 19th (old style) commemorates the victory. The white
walls and red turrets are copied from those of the Novo Devichi.
The principal church was founded in 1684 by Catherine, daughter of
the Tsar Alexis, and differs from those of Moscow town in being of
red brick. The smaller Church of the Virgin is the older, founded
in 1592; the three others are of the eighteenth century.
The Cossacks were the means of enriching the church by recovering the
silver looted by the French. The decorations are for the most part quite
modern, and the paintings by an Italian. The cemetery has fine
monuments, and there the people resort on summer evenings for the shade
of the trees and restfulness of this peaceful retreat. Further along the
Kalujskaya is the Alexandrina Palace, formerly the property of the
Orloffs, with its celebrated pleasaunce "sans souçi," extending to the
wooded bank of the Moskva, with pretty views of Moscow and one excellent
one of the Church of the Saviour seen alone at the extremity of a fine
avenue of great trees.
DANILOVSKI MONASTYR
This has the advantage of being the oldest establishment of its
kind in Moscow. Founded in the Kremlin by Daniel in 1272, it was
transferred in 1330, and in the reign of Ivan IV. rebuilt on its
present site. The walls are less ornate than those of the other
fortifications of their time; the machecoules with superposed
loop-holes over the gun-ports are also unusual and the polygonal
corner towers have greater symmetry than those of Simonov or Novo
Spasski. The chief object of interest within the building is the
silver shrine of the founder placed in the church by the Tsar
Alexis in 1652. The other two churches are commonplace, but in the
cemetery is the tomb of Gogol, one of the most original of
Muscovite authors.
The Zamoskvoretski quarter, south of the river, was in mediæval times
little better than a swamp and long uninhabited. The Mongols settled
there later, and Tartar names indicate some streets, as Balchoog,
"quagmire," and Bolotnaia, "swamps;" as late as the reign of the Great
Catherine, the Island where is now the Babygorodskaia (little town) was
open waste land, and there the rebel impostor Pugatchev, brought to
Moscow in an iron cage, was beheaded in 1773. A raised road Krimski-val,
above the fen-land leads from the Donskoi Monastyr to the Krimski Most,
the tubular bridge over the river near the Ostogenka. It obtained its
name from the fact that the Krim Tartars in their attacks on Moscow
always crossed the river at that point, and it is still better known as
Krimski Brode or "ford."
NOVO DEVICHI CONVENT
West of the Krimski Most, where the river makes a wide sweep and on
three side bounds a large tract of low lying land, is the Maidens'
Field, which tradition asserts is the locality of the market at which
the Tartars in old times purchased Muscovite girls for the Mohammedan
harems in Constantinople and Ispahan. Historians contend that the name
is derived from the convent established there since 1525. There is no
doubt that this was established in the early years of the sixteenth
century to commemorate the recapture of Smolensk by Vasili III. It is
also indisputable that there were already convents existing within
Moscow and that _Novo Devichi Monastyr_ means simply _New Monastery for
Women_. Helen, "the maid," was the first abbess of this, and may have
given it the name, but it was customary in Moscow, before and since, to
name the convents after the dedication, as Conception, Nativity,
Passion, etc., so some earlier use of the popular appellation "Maidens'
Field" is more probable.
The convent is two miles distant from the Kremlin, but also on the
river bank, though a tank serving as a moat actually separates it
from the present raised embankment of the Moskva. The walls were
built by the same Italians who completed the walls of the Kremlin,
and are of the same type, but round and square towers alternate and
both have some of the heavy florid decoration so common in Moscow.
The single and double dropped-arch is most conspicuous, and the
quaintness of the architecture is accentuated by the glaring
disparity of the colouring--dead white for the walls and interior
of the open turrets, dark Indian red for the tops of the towers and
masonry above the corbels of the machecoules. The belfry is of five
lofty stages _en retraite_ surmounted with a gilded bulbous dome
and immense cross; its colours are pink and white with neutral
facings: yellow, green, rose-pink picked out with white or darker
tints are used for the other churches; that over the gateway being
white with green roof, and both green and blue are used lavishly
elsewhere for the roofs of the buildings within the enclosure,
which together with the gold on domes and crosses, gives to the
convent-fortress a beauty that is wholly eastern.
The two churches Vasili founded have been preserved and others
added. They are--
Church of the Assumption, with a chapel dedicated to the Holy
Ghost.
Church of St Ambrose, of Milan.
Church of The Transfiguration of the Virgin.
Church of The Protection of the Virgin.
Chapel of SS. Balaam and Jehosaphat, beneath the belfry.
Church of St James the Apostle, founded in gratitude of the
preservation of the monastery on St James's day 1812.
The cathedral church with chapels to the Archangel Michael; to SS.
Prokhor and Nikanor; to St Sophia and the sister graces, Vera,
Nadejda, and Lubov (Faith, Hope and Charity). Here the daughters of
Alexis Mikhailovich are buried, as also Eudoxia (Helena), first
wife of Peter I. On the ikonostas is a very early copy of the
Iberian Mother of God, before that ikon was taken to Smolensk in
1456.
Its history is unimportant. Julia the wife of its founder was
forced to take the veil here in 1563 when Vasili intended to marry
Helena Glinski; Boris Godunov and his sister Irene lived within it
during the six weeks following upon the death of Theodore I.
Notwithstanding its apparent strength, during the times of trouble
Vasili Shoviski after various struggles to retain it, was forced to
give it up to the invading
[Illustration: NOVO DEVICHI CONVENT]
Poles. Peter the Great imprisoned his sister Sophia within its
walls, and executed many of the streltsi before her windows that
their agony might awe her bold spirit. Some years after he made it
a foundling hospital, and 250 infants were housed there before the
Hospitalrie Dom was built; it was abolished in 1725. Napoleon
visited it in 1812 and at first it suffered little; the King of
Naples ordering divine service to be celebrated daily as usual, but
later Davoust was billeted there, and after the disaster the French
before quitting it did their utmost to blow up the belfry, the
cathedral and stores. The nuns at considerable risk interrupted the
fired train and, by their intrepidity and subsequent perseverance
in combating the fire, saved the convent from destruction.
Russian monasteries and convents are not rigorously closed to the
public like those of the Roman church. Generally from sunrise to
sunset the great gates stand open that all may enter who desire to
do so; and the nuns, so far from being secluded from the world, are
rather encouraged to go out into it, both on errands of charity
and, at need, to supplement by their own handicraft a too scanty
income. For the most part the cells are shared in common by three
inmates who unite their daily rations of tea, salt, and
black-bread, and whilst the infirm sisters busy themselves in
copying ikons or producing lace, needle-work and the like, the more
active go into the town to dispose of the produce. In convents as
elsewhere the Russian rule holds good that one's room is inviolate:
strictly private if the inmates wish, yet open to whomsoever it is
their pleasure to entertain.