The Ulangersky Skit was an Old Believer monastery founded in the 1780s on the Kozlenets River near the present-day town of Semyonov in Semyonovsky Uyezd, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. It existed until February 28, 1858, when it was finally destroyed by the authorities. Among the Trans-Volga skits, it was distinguished by the "aristocratic" character of its inhabitants and the richness of its liturgical services, as well as its close ties with the Rogozhskoye Cemetery in Moscow.[1]
Foundation and Organization
The skit was built to replace the "Old Ulanger," which had been located in Makaryevsky Uyezd of Kostroma Governorate and had burned down from a lightning strike on the eve of Epiphany. The principal founders of the new monastery were Galich landowner Feodosiya Fyodorovna Sukhonina and noblewoman Akulina Stepanovna Svechina: Sukhonina gathered the nuns of the burned skit into a new community.[1] Until the mid-nineteenth century, a three-meter wooden cross venerated here was said to have been erected by Sukhonina at the site she had chosen.[1]
At various times, Ulanger counted between 12 and 20 women's and men's cells. The majority belonged to the Beglopovtsy (fugitive-priest) movement, while some belonged to the priestless (Bespopovtsy) tradition. The skit was considered "aristocratic": members of noble families settled here, and in the nineteenth century they were joined by people of the merchant class along with their households. Widowed merchant women headed the cells and took the schema, while their domestic servants were tonsured as monastics. On certain feast days, the services were conducted by twelve priests.[1] Until the very time of its destruction, two noblewomen lived in the skit, one of whom the nuns called a court lady: according to eyewitnesses, she had indeed previously been a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court.[1]
Three old cemeteries were venerated on the grounds of the skit. To one of them, at a former men's cell, pilgrims came to venerate Jonah and Elijah, referred to as the venerable fathers. To Porfiriya's cell, pilgrims came to venerate Saint Thekla, whose relics had been found incorrupt during the digging of a grave for the abbess.[1]
Closure and Destruction
In 1838, the Ulanger Skete was renamed a village in official documents, yet in practice continued to exist as an Old Believer monastic community.[1] During the destruction of the sketes of Semyonov Uyezd, carried out in fulfilment of a decree by Nicholas II of 1853, it was planned to resettle the inhabitants of the Olenevsky and Komarovsky Sketes into the Ulanger Skete.[1] In 1856, some of the residents of the village of Ulanger were forced to formally join the Osinovskaya Edinoverie community.[1] On 28 February 1858, the skete was destroyed for good: the prayer house was converted into a residential izba (traditional wooden house).[1]
After the destruction, the inhabitants resettled in the villages of Ivanovskoye and Fundrikovo, to which all valuable books and icons were taken. In the early twentieth century, Fundrikovo had a secret prayer house where, among ancient holy objects from the Ulanger monastic communities, there was kept an icon of the Holy Trinity donated by Zinaida, sister of the merchant N. A. Bugrov.[2]
Current State
On the site of the skete there arose the village of Ulanger, located to the northwest of Semyonov, 2 km from the Semyonov–Kovernino highway. As of 1995, three old houses survived here, which local residents dated to approximately 150 years earlier, as well as a cemetery with three graves bearing golbtsy (traditional wooden grave markers) in its southwestern, oldest section. In the southern part of the village grew an old pine tree, venerated by local residents and in the 1990s marked with a sign indicating state protection as a natural monument.[1]
Sources
- irisk.me — Ulanger Skete
- ruvera.ru — Zavolzhye Sketes: Odintsovskoye, Fundrikovskoye, Ulangerskoye, Osinkovskoye — Russkaya Vera