Active restoration of the monastery began in 2002, when Hegumen Alexander (Lukin) was appointed abbot: over the following two and a half years, all the monastery buildings were roofed, domes were raised, crosses were erected, and the brethren's building — the former monastery hospital — was fully renovated; the monastery has a metochion with a wooden chapel-church in the city of Balakhna.[1]


Vysokovsky Uspensky Monastery is one of the few surviving monastery complexes with a notable architectural ensemble from the Classicism period. The stone structures of the monastery were built in the early 19th century, almost simultaneously, which ensured the unity and integrity of the large architectural ensemble. The monastery has preserved the five-domed Uspensky Cathedral (1834), the Church of the Three Hierarchs with a refectory (1835), the Nikolsky Church (1827), the abbot's and cell buildings, a four-tiered bell tower, and the south-western corner tower of the enclosure wall.[1][2] The bell tower was built between 1830 and 1839 to a design by architect Fursov and was equipped with ten bells, the largest of which weighed 307 puds; the monastery also had a wooden St. George's Church dating from 1834, which was most likely lost during the Soviet period.[2] A distinctive feature of the monastery complex's layout is the placement of its buildings on three terraces, with a height difference of up to 14 metres between them.

The monastery is situated on the high bank of the Utrus River, two kilometres from the selo of Vysokovo in Koverninsky District, in the Zavolzhye forests. The monastery was founded in 1784 by a monk named Gerasim (Grigory Ivanov in secular life) — a native of the Yekaterinoslav Don Cossack Host who had previously lived in the Old Believer Komarovsky Skete of Semyonovsky Uyezd in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. Together with his companion, the monk Paisiy, he settled in the "Rymovsky" forests of Makaryevsky Uyezd in Kostroma Governorate, where the Vysokovsky Skete came into being. On 8 October 1801, twenty-two inhabitants of the skete signed an official "resolution" and petitioned the Holy Synod to be reunited with the Orthodox Church on the terms of Edinoverie; the consecration of the first wooden church of the future Edinoverie monastery took place on 13 August 1807, and over the following twelve years more than 500 schismatics from the surrounding area joined the Edinoverie church; on 13 July 1820, by a decree of Alexander I, the skete was renamed the "communal hermitage for monastics" under the name of Vysokovskaya Uspenskaya.[1] From 1917 onwards, the monastery entered years of oblivion and silence.

The monastery was closed in 1929: a paved road was laid across its grounds, hay was stored in the Uspensky Cathedral, a woodworking workshop was set up in the Church of the Three Hierarchs, and the abbot's building housed a collective farm office and residential quarters; the collective farm later moved out, and the buildings stood abandoned for a long time.[1] The monastery's estate was gradually destroyed. In 1979, by a decision of the Gorky Regional Executive Committee, the surviving architectural ensemble of the monastery was placed under state protection as an architectural monument, and in 1995 it was granted the status of a monument of federal significance. The revival of the monastery began in 1999, when the surviving monastic buildings were transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas Diocese.

Abbot: Hegumen Alexander (Lukin). Address: 606570, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Koverninsky District, Vyselki settlement.

Links

Sources

  1. nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Metropolitanate (archive)
  2. old-churches.ru — Vysokovsky Uspensky Edinoverie Men's Monastery