Mass Media Overview
7 MAIN Orthodox Christian sites in Russia/ Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery
04.10.2023 14:22
https://www.rbth.com
Travel
Oct 02 2023
Alexandra Guzeva
Photo: Ilya Timin/TASS
Seventy years of atheism couldn’t destroy Russian Orthodox Christianity. From the end of the 1980s, people began to rapidly restore destroyed monasteries and churches across the country; and, today, hundreds of thousands of people visit them annually.
1. Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius
2. Diveyevo Convent
3. Kizhi Pogost
4. Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery
At the end of the 14th century, monk Kirill Belozersky, a student of Sergius of Radonezh, reached these northern lands by foot and founded a monastery on the bank of Lake Siverskoye, which was later named in his honor. According to legend, the place for the founding of the monastery was shown to Kirill by the Virgin Mary herself and higher powers saved him from death several times. He was sanctified with the title of ‘Venerable’ for his asceticism and his monastic feats. His relics are one of the most important sacred objects of the monastery.
The Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, with its formidable wall, is one of the largest monasteries in Russia and in the whole of Europe. Churches of the end of the 15th century – start of the 16th century have survived and it’s one of the most important attractions in Vologda Region.
From 1997, the architectural complex of Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was included in the state list of especially precious objects of cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation. From 2000, a branch of the museum – the Ferapontov Monastery, where unique frescoes of Dionisius of the beginning of the 16th century survived – became a UNESCO World Heritage site. Roughly 330,000 people visit the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum and Monastery annually.
5. Pskov-Pechory Monastery
6. Valaam Monastery
7. Solovetsky Monastery