| Photo Information |
Copyright: Lucio Red (Redrubin)
![Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 741 W: 39 N: 1199]](http://i1.treklens.com/misc/g-s-g.gif) (8486) |
| Genre: Places |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2008-03-14 |
| Categories: Architecture |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2008-03-27 0:30 |
| Viewed: 396 |
| Points: 36 |
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
The Holy Trinity Monastery was founded in 1345 by St. Sergius of Radonezh (1322-92), a highly revered monk and the patron saint of Russia. The monastery started as a simple wooden church in an isolated area, but soon grew much larger.
Originally a hermit, Sergius soon attracted many followers and granted their request to become their father superior. In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter for the monastic community, which led to the expansion of the monastery with buildings like a refectory and bakery. Sergius' charter was used as a model for more than 400 monasteries founded by his followers throughout Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirilov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius was an important figure in secular Russian history as well. He blessed Dmitri Donskoi before the important Battle of Kulikovo (1380) against the Tatars, and even sent two of his monks to help. The battle was a success, but the monastery was devastated by fire in 1408 when a Tatar unit raided the area.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year, his relics were interred in the monastery's first stone cathedral (Cathedral of the Holy Trinity), built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. It soon became traditional for Muscovite royals to be baptized in this cathedral and to hold thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the Church of the Holy Ghost. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, a village (posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad ("Settlement of Sergius"), which was known as Zagorsk in the Soviet era.
Just opposite the monastery walls, St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring 12 towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a 16-month Polish siege in 16081610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
Numerous structures were added to the Holy Trinity Monastery in the 17th century, including a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkboard design. The Refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (16931699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on Holy Trinity the dignity of a lavra, making the metropolitan of Moscow also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded on foot from Moscow to the monastery. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the lavra.
Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was the tallest structure built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the lavra maintained its status as the richest monastery in Russia. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. The medieval collections of the lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. The monastery maintained several sketes in Sergiyev Posad, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution (1917), the Soviet government closed the lavra and assigned its buildings to civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. During this period many valuables were stolen and sold, lost, or transferred to other collections.
Following Joseph Stalin's controversial conversion during World War II, the Holy Trinity Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1945. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra remained the seat of the Patriarch of Moscow until 1983, when he settled in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.
Since then, the monastery has continued as a prime center of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted at Holy Trinity in the 1960s and 1970s, and the monastery was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1993. |
MagdalenaN, bakyy, Janice, zhelach, ola_kwiatek, ayse51, Dot, mvdisco, Valerka, lilimih33, black_dream, jazmin, Silvio2006, billy-m, Koala, szatanowska has marked this note useful
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Hi Lucio
very interesting, very nice job. My compliments
regards from Serbia, Bane