Занятие St Andronik Monastery of the Saviour
In all times Moscow was the site of great “spiritual fortresses”, the monasteries. In the Middle Ages a chain of guarding monasteries appeared on the outskirts of Moscow. The south-east was historically the direction from which the Tatars came. Russian cloisters served as fortresses, therefore they were built with imposing towers and thick walls with portholes. By the end of the XV century the ring of the defense fortifications was formed. The last monastery in this chain was St Andronik Monastery of the Saviour founded in the mid-14th century by Metropolitan Aleksiy to commemorate his miraculous escape from death.
In 1356 the Metropolitan was returning home from Constantinople with the Greek icon of the “Holy Face” or “Icon of Christ not made by hands” (the Vernicle) on board the ship. Soon thick clouds covered the sky and a terrible storm started. The wind tore the sails and huge waves threatened to turn the ship upside down. The Metropolitan was saying his prayers and asked God to help him, his crew and all the Russian people. Before the journey to Constantinople Aleksiy managed to reconcile Russian princes keeping them from quarrel. The Metropolitan understood that if he had died, the disturbance would have started in the Russian land. Metropolitan Aleksiy vowed that should he survive the storm he would found a monastery and dedicate it to the saint whose feast day coincided with his safe landing. The ship reached the coast on August,16 when the Orthodox Church celebrated the holiday of Our Saviour. This very icon was with Aleksiy during the storm.
To keep the promise the Metropolitan chose the site for the future monastery on the steep banks of the Yauza river not only for its strategic importance but also because, according to the legend, it was from this hill that Aleksiy got his first glimpse of the Kremlin. First in 1359 a wooden cross was erected in a place where the brook Zolotoy Rozhok emptied into the Yauza( the brook does not exist today) . Then the Metropolitan appointed the monk Andronik, the disciple of St Sergiy of Radonezh to be the first abbot and to supervise the construction of the monastery. At that time the walls and churches of the cloisters were made of wood but a century later the monastery was rebuilt in stone.
In the Middle Ages monasteries were not only the places where Orthodox monks lived and devoted themselves completely to serving God but also they were educational and cultural centres. Monks copied books and collected voluminous libraries there. St Andronik monastery had a large library of its own, including books by the famous Greco-Russian philosopher Maxim the Greek. A lot of monasteries had theological schools attached to them. Monks were the best icon painters in medieval Russia. Old Russian icon painting reached its peak in Andrey Rublev’s creations which are recognized as symbols of iconography.
A monk of Our Saviour and St Andronik monastery Andrey Rublev was honoured as a local saint. Facts about his life are scarce. The place of his birth is unknown and its date is uncertain (possible 1360). It is known only that he was brought up in a secular environment and took monastic vows at a mature age. He probably served his apprenticeship in the icon workshop of the Trinity Monastery of St Sergius outside Moscow. Having painted the icons for Zvenigorod Cathedral, 40 km northwest of Moscow, in 1400 Rublev worked on the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin (the initial building has not survived) and the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. Before retiring to St Andronik monastery Andrev Rublev with the assistance of Daniil Chorny did painting in the Trinity Cathedral at the Trinity Monastery of St Sergius. In 1422 in tribute to Father Superior Sergius of Radonezh, he painted his famous the Old Testament Trinity for the monastery’s iconostasis. Today the icon is kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery. It represents not only the Moscow school of icon painting but the phenomenon of the Russian icon. In his mature years Andrey Rublev lived and worked in St Andronik Monastery where he is said to have died in 1430. The famous icon painter was buried in the grounds of the monastery, but nobody knows the exact place of his grave. In 1989, when the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia was celebrated, Andrey Rublev, creator of many icons known throughout the world was canonized by the Orthodox Church. He was added to the assembly of All-Russia saints.
The monastery experienced many disasters in its history. It was laid waste by foreign invaders in 1571, 1611 and 1812. One of the fires destroyed its archives. But most of all the monastery and its ensemble suffered from the Soviets. After the October Revolution of 1917 it housed one of the first GULAG labour camps for foreign nationals then it was turned into a hostel for workers of the nearby Hammer and Sickle Factory and finally scheduled for demolition. Between 1929 and 1932 the Bolshevik authorities pulled down the monastery’s bell tower built in the late XVIII and early XIX centuries by Rodion Kazakov which was 73 m high. This was Moscow’s second tallest bell tower after the Kremlin’s Belfry of Ivan the Great. During the years of Soviet power the monastery lost its necropolis: the graves of the Narishkins, Trubetskoys, Orlovs, Tretyakovs, count P. Sheremetyev, N. Volkonskiy (Leo Tolstoy’s grandfather) and other famous people. The heroes of the Great Northern War (1700-1721) and Patriotic War of 1812 were also buried there. Later when it was decided to erect a monument to the founder of Russian theatre Fyodor Volkov the place for his grave was chosen arbitrary – nobody knew the exact place.
Fortunately, the vandals finally realized the need to collect and save treasures of national culture. In 1947 the monastery was declared a historical and nature preserve. And in 1960 it became home to the Andrey Rublev Museum of Early Russian Culture and Art, in honour of the 600th anniversary of his birth. In the 1990s a statue of A. Rublev (sculptor V. A. Vatagin) was erected in the park outside the monastery, which hosts an annual celebration in his honour on July 17.
A stroll inside the heavy stone fortifications of the monastery is an excursion into Moscow’s past.
The dominating structure on the monastery grounds is the single-domed Cathedral of the Saviour, Moscow’s oldest stone building that preserves some traces of Andrey Rublev’s work. Erected in 1420-1427 on the site of an earlier wooden church, it rests on the mass grave of Russian warriors who fought in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380), the decisive Russian victory that eventually led to the end of Mongol-Tatar rule in Russia. A. Rublev and his close associate, the icon painter Daniil Chorny took part in the interior and exterior decoration of the cathedral. Unfortunately, the original interiors were lost in the fire in 1812, except some ornamental features that survived on the windows of the altar part.
To the left of Holy Gate, the main entrance to the monastery, the 16th century Abbot’s House decorated with tiles and an early 19th century Seminary lies to the right. The next building to the left and across the pathway from the Cathedral of Our Saviour is the Refectory which was built during the reign of Ivan the Great, between 1504 and 1506.Its interiors repeated the interior of the Faceted Chamber in the Kremlin. Attached to the Refectory is the Church of St Michael the Archangel, another example of the style known as Moscow baroque.
It was commissioned by the Lopukhin family – relatives of Yevdokiya Lopukhina, the first, unloved wife of Peter the Great – as a private chapel and family crypt in 1694. But there are no Lopukhins buried here, as four years later Peter forced his wife into a convent in faraway Suzdal and her family was exiled to Siberia. Whereupon the pace of construction slowed so much that the church wasn’t finished until 1731. As to Yevdokiya – she was buried in New Maiden’s Convent.
The Rublev Museum’s collection of icons is distributed around several buildings. There are no icons by Rublev himself here, but some excellent copies of his work are on show, along with genuine pieces by his contemporaries. Original Rublev icons can be seen in the Tretyakov Gallery. The Rublev Museum’s exhibit includes 17th century icons from the Novgorod, Tver, Rostov and Moscow schools. The highlights of the collection are the early-sixteenth-century St George Smiting the Dragon from the Novgorod School and an eighteenth century Our Lady of Tikhvin from the Donskoy Monastery as well as paintings depicting the life of St Nicholas of Zaraysk, one of Russia’s favourite saints. The 18th century monks’ building, which contained monks’ cells, is being renovated and will provide further gallery space. A separate exhibition of applied art contains jewellery, goblets, coins, vestments and other artefacts from medieval times onwards and there is also an exhibition devoted to church bells.
Today the value of the exhibits is estimated at millions of dollars but for Russian people they are priceless as a perfect expression of faith in the divine beauty and spiritual meaning of the world.
Список используемой литературы:
- Куркин Ю.Н. Древние московские монастыри. – М.: АО Московские учебники, 1999
- Демин А.Г. Золотое кольцо Москвы – М.: Вече, 2006
- Соловова Е.Н. Guide-interpreter – М.: Просвещение, 2002
- Скорикова Т.П. Moscow and its Environs – М.: Менеджер, 2004
- Simon Richmond Russia and Belarus – Lonely Planet, 2006
- Dan Richardson The Rough Guide to Moscow – Rough Guides? 2009
- Moscow and St. Petersburg – Fodor’s Travel Publications? 2008
- Moscow – Eyewitness Travel, 2007
- Землянская Н., Гриньков В. Moscow in Pocket – Петербург: Welcome, 2007