Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent, village. Paygarma
The Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent is a resurgent shrine of our Fatherland. The monastery is located in the village of Paygarma. According to legend, the image of St. miraculously appeared at the site of the monastery's foundation. mts. Paraskeva in 1865. First, a chapel was built here, and then a women’s community was founded in 1866 with funds from the benefactor Kiseleva and some peasants. In 1884 the community received the status of a monastery.
The Assumption Cathedral and a temple in the name of the Ascension of the Lord were built in the monastery. Image of St. mts. Paraskeva, written in the 19th century on Mount Athos, with a particle of her relics, was the main shrine of the monastery and was revered as miraculous. This saint of God has special grace in arranging family life; she is also considered the patroness of trade. At the monastery there was a shelter for clerical orphans and a hotel for pilgrims.
You can go down to the springs, and there are three of them in the monastery - the Great Martyr Paraskeva, St. Nicholas the Pleasant and St. Seraphim of Sarov - along a steep path and stairs. Two springs - the Great Martyr Paraskeva and St. Nicholas - are rich in iron.
The source of St. Seraphim of Sarov is completely different, its container is painted with green malachite stains, and the taste gives off mineral salts.
There are many cases where weak people, having bathed in healing springs, were healed of seemingly incurable diseases.
In 1918, a hospital for Red Army soldiers was placed in the monastery, and from then on the military occupied more and more space there, and the nuns - less and less, until they were completely evicted.
Previously, the monastery belonged to the Penza diocese.
St. John the Theologian Monastery, village. Makarovka
St. John the Theologian Monastery is an outstanding architectural monument of the 17th-18th centuries. It consists of: the summer Cathedral of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian (1704), a 36 m high bell tower (1720-.), a winter heated Church of the Archangel Michael (1702), as well as the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “The Sign” (early 17th century). )
Of the entire ensemble of the temple complex, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist and the bell tower have been preserved to this day in their pristine beauty. The Church of the Archangel Michael, the icon of the Sign of the Mother of God, the fence with towers - all this was restored from drawings, photographs, excavations, and archival documents by employees of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Mordovia.
In 1946, the St. John the Theological Cathedral was returned to the believers, and in 1961 the temple was closed again. Since 1969, long-term restoration work began in Makarovka (until the mid-eighties). In 1987, residents of the village. Makarovka, with the assistance of believers from the villages of Lukhovka, Kulikovka and Soldatskoye through His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (1990), managed to request the St. John the Theological Cathedral and the bell tower for holding divine services. Archpriest Georgy Sakovich was appointed rector of the St. John the Theological Church. In 1991, the Znamenskaya Church was transferred to the newly formed Saransk diocese, and in 1996, the Mikhailo-Arkhangelskaya Church. The restored house of the Polyansky landowners became the summer residence of the Archbishop.
In 1994, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', by the decision of His Eminence Barsanuphius, Archbishop of Saransk and Mordovia, the St. John the Theological Monastery was opened.
Archpriest Maxim Chebotarev (in monasticism Vladimir) became the vicar of the newly formed monastery. Since January 2001, due to the serious illness of Archimandrite Vladimir, the monastery was headed by Abbot Lazar (Gurkin), known in Mordovia for the restoration of the famous Chufarovsky monastery. Over the course of a year, experienced hieromonks from several Mordovia monasteries of different ages gathered around him, wanting to serve the Lord.
On August 3, 2000, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II, as part of a two-day visit to Mordovia, visited the Makarov Monastery, where he examined the temple complex, and, responding to the welcoming speech of the monastery’s abbot, Archimandrite Vladimir (Chebotarev), gave the Primate’s blessing to the brethren from the pulpit , and then, together with the leadership of the republic, took part in a gala reception at the residence of Archbishop Barsanuphius.
An event of great importance for the monastery was the consecration of the winter church of the Archangel Michael on November 21, 2002. During that year, with the financial support of benefactors, it was possible to restore this temple, which was left in the most deplorable condition by museum workers. It brought particular joy to the brethren and local residents that the temple was returned to the Church exactly on its three hundredth anniversary. Now daily services are held there and the Liturgy is celebrated.
In 2002, a project was created to build a full-fledged monastery complex with a refectory, abbot and administrative buildings. By the fall of 2003, the construction of a comfortable two-story fraternal building was completed, the territory of the monastery was surrounded by a stone fence, the dome and the entire upper part of the St. John the Theological Cathedral were restored.
Over the summer of 2004, through the efforts of Bishop Barsanuphius with the financial support of the Government of the Republic of Mordovia and its Head N.I. Merkushkin managed to completely restore the facades and replace the entire roof on the territory of the monastery temple complex. By the fall of 2004, all interior finishing work in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “of the Sign” will be completed; plans for 2006 include the construction of a hotel for pilgrims.
A distinctive feature of our monastery is the strictly Statutory church service; the monastery priests regularly and in accordance with the Charter perform all the Church Sacraments necessary for the local population, and also with their pastoral words they help people who come to the monastery to resolve pressing issues of spiritual life. On Sunday mornings, a prayer service with an akathist and blessing of water is performed in front of the locally revered icon of the Mother of God “The Inexhaustible Chalice” for those suffering from drunkenness and drug addiction.
Currently, the brethren of the monastery consists of twenty monks and several novices. In addition to Abbot Lazar, the most famous inhabitants of the monastery are Schema-Archimandrite Pitirim (Peregudov), a student of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, an elder of strict monastic life, and the confessor of the monastery, Schema-Abbot Feofan (Dankov), who carries out the feat of spiritual care not only for the brethren, but also for those who come to the monastery numerous pilgrims from all over Russia.
The Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent is an architectural monument of the 18th century. It is located in a cozy place in the village of Paygarma. This shrine has a reviving status. The monastery was built in honor of the holy martyr Paraskeva. An unusual phenomenon once happened at this place. I saw an icon of a martyr in 1865. Today the shrine serves as the main shrine of the complex. It was written in the 19th century, on Mount Athos. In the process of its creation, particles of the saint's relics were used. God's servant is distinguished by special grace. She helps arrange family life.
The image is also considered the patron of trade. Not far from the monastery, three springs formed - Paraskeva Pyatnitsa with a font, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Seraphim of Sarov (mineral spring). Women suffering from infertility often turn to the key of St. Paraskeva. Here they receive special care for infertility and vision treatment. There are many lakes and forests nearby. The village is picturesque.
How to get there
The Family Suitcase company organizes pilgrimage trips.
Places of power
There are a large number of cases in history when people suffering from various diseases recovered by bathing in local springs. So, in 1998, a few days before the start of Great Lent, a miraculous phenomenon occurred in the monastery. The well-known icon “Blessed Heaven” began to bleed myrrh. This phenomenon was seen by parishioners who were present at the service at that time. Myrrh flowed from the icon. This is the name for fragrant church oil. All those present at the service were anointed with myrrh.
In addition, after a certain period of time it became known that one of the parishioners was able to recover from an illness that had tormented him for years. It was a young man named Pavel Zhuvaikin. He was 12 years old. From birth the child was blind in his left eye. After the anointing, the boy received his sight. Throughout the history of its existence, the icon streamed myrrh three times - on February 27, March 1 and 8.
Paraskev-Voznesensky Convent is located 35 kilometers from Saransk. There is a large railway station not far from the shrine. The date of foundation is 1864. This was an initiative of local residents. The popularity of local sources is great. People come to them from various regions. Local water is used for washing, part of the water is used for the bath, and part is discharged into the drain, which is located under the altar.
History of the monastery
When founding the monastery, local residents relied on information about the sanctity of the Paigarm springs. The history of the Russian land is not simple. In the second half of the 18th century, it was under the control of the landowner Eremey Struisky. He began to sell off useless lands. So the firewood went to the wealthy Mordvins. The forest area was famous for its springs. On one of them the icon of Paraskeva appeared. The wounded soldier was subsequently able to heal from it. The soldier built a log house and brought a spring into it. From this moment on, for many years the path to the spring has not been overgrown. There are a lot of people who want to visit this place.
In 1861 the heath was donated to the church. A monastery was opened on this site. In 1863-1865 peasants began actively asking to open a women's community here. The noblewoman Maria Mikhailovna Kiseleva took an active part in this process. She was able to achieve her goals. A sister community was organized at the keys. To provide for it, Kiseleva sold 20 acres of arable land near Paygarma. Her act became an example for other rich peasants.
In total, the community ultimately had about 46 hectares of arable land and forest area. The construction process of the temple began in 1865. Money for construction came from donations from various cities. At the end of the 19th century, farmsteads began to form in Penza, Saransk, St. Petersburg and other settlements.
Until 1865, there was a small chapel in Paigarm. In 1866, another chapel was illuminated—Paraskevo-Pyatnitskaya. The Church of the Ascension was built with the money of the people. In 1873, on the site of the chapel, it was decided to build a church made of wood in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva. There was a key inside the temple; it was placed in a jug. The wooden building looked harmonious against the background of the forest. It was destroyed in the 1950s.
Today, in its place stands another monastery, created in the likeness of the previously built one. From the monastery there begins a short descent to the springs and springs. Nearby there was a row of cells. To the west one could see the refectory building, and to the north the hospital building. To the east were public facilities. These were a school, a church shop, and hotels for pilgrims. The central part of the monastery is mainly represented by the cathedral square.
Monastery since 1870 was completely surrounded by a wall with towers in which church motifs are clearly visible. Cathedral Square took a long time to form. The whole process took several decades.
The Great Assumption Cathedral was founded in 1874. It was built over 16 years. The project was implemented in memory of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The external design resembles the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. However, notes of originality can also be traced. The paintings on the walls, which could boast exceptional expressiveness and sophistication, deserve special attention. It is noteworthy that some of the frescoes have been perfectly preserved to this day. The paint layer was damaged in places. The images on the walls were mercilessly damaged with firearms by the barbarians of the 20th century. Plaster was chipped off, icons were desecrated.
The restorers had a wide range of work to do. Early 1990s many images were rewritten anew. The Assumption Cathedral is currently completely renovated. Services are held there regularly. In addition, the temple has excellent acoustic properties. The interior space is bright and filled with solemnity.
The Ascension Church was built already in 1893. The work was carried out according to the design of the architect A. E. Ehrenberg. If we take into account the main features, the shrine copies the outline of the cathedral. It consists of five chapters and is equipped with heating. During Soviet times, the chapters were destroyed. They were subsequently rebuilt. But the paintings are not completed yet. There is a fresco in the temple that was painted over in 1950. Also interesting is the image of St. Panteleimon on the pillar. It is located from the west. There are many paintings on New Testament themes.
Monastic activity
Since the 1870s There was an icon-painting workshop at the monastery for a long time. The faces of nuns were written in it. The role of students was novices. All works had a special mark. Attached was a piece of paper on which the required text was written. An entire building was given over to the workshops, as they were very successful. Moreover, such areas of activity as foil stamping, tailoring, and shoemaking developed. There was a cattle yard, which was serviced by up to 40 workers. There was an apiary and a garden. By 1890 The women's community increased significantly in size. She could be the envy of many leading monastery complexes. Pelageya Smirnova was the head of the community. Subsequently, she was also tonsured a nun.
The monastery paid a lot of attention to monastic activities. For a long time, an orphanage, a school, and an almshouse existed under him. Orphan students were housed in a separate two-story building. The first tier was allocated for the kitchen, dining room, and rooms for assistants. The Orphan School was an example to follow. She won gold medals at national exhibitions. In the 20th century, it was reorganized into an original spiritual and educational institution. There were no more similar organizations in the Volga region.
In 1918, the monastery was actively used as the headquarters of the Russian army. Subsequently, a military hospital was located here. The nuns were sisters of mercy. Soon the Paigarm State Farm was formed on the holy lands. His existence was not long. Then the building was used as a district hospital and railway warehouses. A village was formed on the territory of gardens and parks. The church near the cemetery and the bell tower were demolished.
The final owner was the Ministry of Defense. It came to the conclusion to operate the monastery as a reserve pharmaceutical warehouse. For ease of storage, both temples were divided into two tiers using ceilings. Moreover, the beams were screwed directly into the frescoes.
The next historical stage is significant with the formation of the Saransk diocese. The question arose about returning the monastery to the believers. First, the Assumption Cathedral was returned to Orthodoxy, then the tomb and refectory, and cell buildings. By 1997, the large white stone building and the former hospital house were returned.
Currently, more than 50 clergy live here. The monastery was completely returned to Orthodoxy. The shrine above the source had to be rebuilt. The Ascension Church is at the stage of reconstruction. The foundation of the bell tower was recently laid.
The complex has a courtyard in Saransk - the Church of the Nativity of Christ of the Saransk diocese. It is distinguished by the presence of a fairly large parish. All proceeds go towards restoring buildings in Paigarm. The flow of tourists is large. Every year it only gets bigger. There are many young people among those who come.
Features of the origin of the earth, Paraskeva Pyatnitsa
Paygarma translated from Mordovian sounds like “aspen forest”. Today, there are many stands of aspen trees in the area and to this day. You can see one of them when you approach the Paygarm junction. It stretches to Khovanshchina station. For some reason, a tree like aspen is not popular in Mordovians. Someone said that this tree is even evil. According to popular beliefs, evil spirits live in aspen trees. There are a large number of gods in Mordovia. Among them there are both evil and good Gods. Indigenous people remember names and their character well.
Paraskeva appeared to the people from the water. She is the patroness of women, providing assistance in marriage and childbirth. She supports in everyday life, especially in spinning and weaving. Therefore, fabrics, canvases, linen, wool, etc. are donated to her. In the old days, people threw all gifts into the well. This ritual was called “mokrida”.
The parents of the holy martyr Paraskeva, named Friday, were Christians. They had a special regard for the day of the Lord's passion. When their daughter was born, they named her Paraskeva Friday. It soon becomes clear that Paraskeva began to join in the passion of Christ. The virgin dedicated her life to the Lord. For her bold confession, the authorities imprisoned the girl and subjected her to torture. Her torment was severe. An angel visited the virgin in prison. The wounds of the martyr began to close, and she recovered. Then new trials attacked the confessor. They tried to torture her with fire. But the torches ignited violently and scorched the ill-wishers themselves. The saint was beheaded with a sword.
The Paygarm Monastery amazes with its large territory. It's easy to breathe and cozy here. You can visit several churches and springs. The architecture of the objects amazes with its grandeur. The blue and white color suits the complex incredibly. The water in the springs is hard and contains a lot of iron.
When visiting Paigarm, be sure to visit Saransk. If possible, you will be able to climb to the golden domes of the temple of Admiral Ushakov. The upper platform offers beautiful views of the external surroundings. Mostly only “ringers” go up there. You can arrange with them to visit the high-rise building. The city of Saransk is only getting prettier every year. From above it is incredibly beautiful. The golden domes of the temple themselves are made using modern technologies and are of high quality.
A convent located near the venerated site since the 18th century. Pyatnitsky spring. Founded in 1865 by noblewoman M. M. Kiseleva and novice P. S. Smirnova (later Abbess Paraskeva) as a women's community, in 1884 it received the status of a monastery. To the beginning XX century a populous monastery with a large farm, schools, an orphanage, a hospital and an almshouse. Closed at the beginning 1920s The buildings were occupied by a hospital, then warehouses, a military unit, the fence and bell tower were broken. Restoration work has been ongoing since 1994.
The Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent is widely known not only in Mordovia, but also beyond its borders. This explains the attention to the monastery from the highest persons. In June 2005, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad (now His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus') visited the monastery. In the same year, fonts were built and consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and St. Seraphim of Sarov.
In 2006, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II came to Paygarm.
Currently, the Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent continues to develop: in 2008, construction of the bell tower began, and in January 2010, the temple in honor of the Holy Martyr Paraskeva was consecrated.
Many pilgrims come to this holy monastery from all corners of our Fatherland, as well as from abroad, to venerate the Holy Great Martyr Paraskeva, the patroness of these places, to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, to join monastic works and prayer, and to bathe in the healing epiphany springs. They find here grace-filled healing in illnesses and help in their labors and concerns. The monastery accepts everyone with love and tries to help everyone with their spiritual needs.
This is a description of the landmark Paigarmsky Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent 33 km southwest of Saransk, Mordovia (Russia). As well as photos, reviews and a map of the surrounding area. Find out the history, coordinates, where it is and how to get there. Check out other places on our interactive map for more detailed information. Get to know the world better.
Cathedrals No. 17594 – Paigarmsky Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent
Temples of Russia No. 13335 – Paraskeva-Voznesensky Paygarm Convent (1884)
A convent located near the venerated site since the 18th century. Pyatnitsky spring. Founded in 1865 by noblewoman M. M. Kiseleva and novice P. S. Smirnova (later Abbess Paraskeva) as a women's community, in 1884 it received the status of a monastery. To the beginning XX century a populous monastery with a large farm, schools, an orphanage, a hospital and an almshouse. Closed at the beginning 1920s The buildings were occupied by a hospital, then warehouses, a military unit, the fence and bell tower were broken. Restored in 1994.
The Paygarma Paraskeva-Voznesensky (in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva and in honor of the Ascension of the Lord) convent is located 35 km from the city of Saransk, 5 km from the large junction railway station Ruzaevka, near the village of Paygarma, from which it got its name. Founded in 1864 on the initiative of local peasants and on lands donated by the benefactor State Councilor Maria Mikhailovna Kiseleva. Local residents noticed some features of the Paygarm environs back in ancient times, but only in the 18th century did the popularity of local relict waters enter the sphere of Orthodox rituals. There are three main sources: two are consecrated in memory of St. Saraphim of Sarov and Saint Nicholas of Myra, and the third - in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva. From the first two sources, Serafimovsky and Nikolsky, water is taken for washing; From the source of the Great Martyr Paraskeva, part of the water is sent to the baths, and part is discharged into the drain under the altar of the temple, from where the water is taken for drinking.
When founding the monastery, believers relied on already established ideas about the holiness of the Paigarm springs. In the second half of the 18th century. the wasteland near the village of Paygarma belonged to the Ruzaevsky landowner Eremey Struisky. He sold the useless plots to the Dyatkov landowners, and they resold the firewood on the hills to four rich Mordvins. Soon, in one of the forest springs, the icon of the Great Martyr Paraskeva was revealed, from which a sick soldier who had been retired received healing. The healed man made a frame, lowered it into the spring - and since then, for two centuries now, the folk trail to the spring has not been overgrown. After the reform of 1861, the owners of Paigarm dachas decided to donate the wasteland to a charitable cause - to open a monastery here near the springs. In 1863-65, peasants from several Mordovian villages persistently petitioned the diocesan authorities to establish a women's community, in which they were helped by the Penza noblewoman Maria Mikhailovna Kiseleva, who owned a considerable piece of land near Paygarma. By the end of 1864, the main burden of work on monastic affairs fell on her shoulders. M. M. Kiseleva ensured that on July 20, 1865, the Holy Synod opened a sister community with the keys. To provide for her financially, Kiseleva transferred the 20 acres of arable land that belonged to her near Paygarma to the nuns, and several other rich peasants did the same: Vasily Gubkov from Boldov, Nikolai Roslankin, Dmitry and Peter Kostin, Semyon and Stepan Zakharov from Mordovian Pishli.
In total, the community owned 46 acres of arable land and forest. in 1878, Emperor Alexander II made a contribution - 75 acres of land seven miles from the monastery (the so-called “Tsar’s Dacha”). Elected trustee of the new community, M. M. Kiseleva entrusted the construction of the monastery to the ryassophore nun from Kerensk Pelageya Stepanovna Smirnova. In the spring of 1865, construction began on the Hell Springs Temple. Over the course of several months, the number of sisters increased to 20 people, then ten more “blueberries” came to them. In 1882 the community reached 220 people. In 1895, the permanent staff consisted of 47 nuns, 8 designated novices, 271 living on probation, 15 elders and 36 orphans from the families of clergy. According to some sources, by 1915 the number of nuns, novices and dependents reached almost 600 people. In St. Petersburg, the Paigarm sisters found support in the person of Count A. S. Apraksin and his wife Countess Maria Dmitrievna. In Apraksin Dvor there was a chapel of the Paygarm Monastery. Money came to Paygarma from donors from Tobolsk, Moscow, Penza, Rostov-on-Don, Saransk, from the Kuban Army Region, Pskov, Astrakhan, Kazan provinces. At the end of the 19th century. farmsteads opened in Saransk, Penza, Insar and St. Petersburg.
In 1909, the Insarsky metochion became an independent St. Olginsky Monastery. Until 1865, in Paigarm there was a small chapel over the source and two dilapidated cells. In 1866, the renovated chapel - Paraskeva-Pyatnitskaya - was consecrated. With the donations of many well-wishers, the Ascension Church was erected in 1874, which was later significantly expanded. Its final version is a three-altar church with a central altar in the name of the Ascension of the Lord and side chapels in honor of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, with five chapters and a bell tower. The outside was covered with planks and painted, and the inside was plastered. The iconostasis was carved from oak and covered with gold leaf. All icons of the first and second rank were considered expensive in terms of the quality of their writing. Particularly valuable was the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, set in a silver-gold robe with precious stones. The monastery received it as a gift from the Patriarch of Jerusalem Procopius in 1874. Among other shrines, two icons of the martyr Paraskeva were revered - a gift from M. M. Kiseleva and the Saransk nobleman Andrei Nikolaevich Salov, who ordered this icon on Athos, in the Bulgarian monastery, where the relics of the martyr Paraskeva were kept.
In 1873, instead of a chapel over the source, benefactors cut down a small wooden church in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva; then the source, which was inside the temple, was placed in a jug, and the outlet of the water was fenced off with a metal grate. This temple fit especially well into the forested fallow. Destroyed in the 1950s, it has now been restored in general terms similar to its former appearance. With its appearance, the ravine was transformed, the forest acquired park-like features. Strategically, the architectural design of the monastery was based on natural differences in elevation. The steep descent to the pond and springs was fenced off by a number of cells, which began with the bishop's chambers and continued with two-story stone and stone-wooden residential buildings, of which there were four.
This is the southern side of the complex. On the western side, above the creek, the architects erected a two-story refectory building and an elongated one-story cell building. From the north, the square was bordered by a hospital building with an internal house church and two more buildings of cells for “those thirsty for testing.” On the eastern side of the monastery there were public buildings: a shop, a school, a boarding school, and economic services. A little further, outside the walls, Abbess Paraskeva built two hotels for pilgrims. The entire central part of the monastery is the cathedral square, the heart of the community - two churches, a tomb and a bell tower.
By the mid-1870s, the entire monastery was already surrounded by a wall with corner towers imitating temple motifs. Cathedral Square took a long time to develop, more than two decades.
In 1874, to the west of the Ascension Church, the large Assumption Cathedral was founded, the construction of which took 16 years. The cathedral was designed with four pillars, five domes, two lights, three altars (the central altar is in memory of the Dormition of the Mother of God, the side altars are in honor of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord and in memory of the Beheading of John the Baptist). Its appearance is similar to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, but has features of deep originality. The cathedral's paintings were distinguished by their exceptional beauty and monumentality. Some of the frescoes have survived to this day, having lost only a small part of the paint layer: the barbarians of the 20th century shot at the faces with rifles, scraped out the eyes of saints with knives, and in some places knocked off pieces of plaster.
Restorers restored and partly rewrote the paintings in the late 1990s. The cathedral has been repaired, brought back to normal, and services are taking place there; The acoustics of the temple are magnificent, and the interior space, pierced by five pillars of light from five chapters, is filled with the triumph of the spirit.
The second, already stone Ascension Church was founded in 1893 according to the design of the Penza diocesan architect A.E. Erenberg, immediately after the completion of construction work in the Assumption Cathedral, exactly along its axis, behind the apses, about forty to fifty meters to the east. In its main features, the Church of the Ascension repeated the outline of the cathedral, but this was not a mechanical copying - although the new church was erected according to the eclectic method, the architect did not allow the thoughtless transfer of standard solutions. Architecturally, the Church of the Ascension is not far from the usual “Tonovsky” five-domed structure, but the goal of the nuns was to get a winter church, the heating of which did not require large financial expenditures. Nowadays, the heads of the temple, destroyed during Soviet times, have been restored, but the paintings are still waiting in the wings. There is one fresco in the temple that was painted over in the 1950s, but is increasingly visible through the paint without the intervention of restorers.
Of the church paintings, the most interesting is the image of St. Panteleimon on the pillar, and on the western wall, at the top, there are three large paintings on New Testament themes: the Transfiguration in the left aisle, the Resurrection in the central nave and the Ascension in the right aisle. In these paintings one can see the hand of nun painters who tried their hand at wall paintings. In addition to the three main temples, by the beginning of the twentieth century. Several more appeared: at the cemetery that arose in 1892, a wooden church in the name of All Saints (Vsesvyatskaya) was built; with an increase in staff to 300-350 people. house churches appeared in the hospital in the name of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” (1892), in the bishop’s chambers - Archangel Michael, in the abbot’s building - in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva. The ensemble was crowned by a 50-meter bell tower. In 1895-97, a chapel, the so-called tomb.
From the end of the 1870s, an icon-painting workshop worked fruitfully in the monastery, in which three nuns painted faces at first; in 1882, the craftswomen already had seven novices, and by the end of the century the number of artists had grown to fifteen people. All icons were marked with a special monastery stamp - a piece of paper with the corresponding text; The stamp was glued to the backs of icons painted on boards. According to data from the 1880s, several workshops operated successfully: an entire building was given over to the cells of goldsmiths; in another building, 20 models worked, engaged in stamping on foil. In addition, tailoring, dyeing, shoemaking, saddlery, and furrier crafts developed. The large cattle yard was served by up to 40 people, there was an apiary, a garden, a park and three farmsteads. By the early 1890s, the Paigarm women's community had outgrown most of the women's monasteries not only in Penza, but also in many neighboring dioceses in size, staff and importance. Therefore, the official recognition of the community as a monastery (Decree of the Synod of April 18, 1884) only legitimized the existing state of affairs. The head of the community, Pelageya Smirnova, was tonsured at the same time and elevated to the rank of abbess. The monastery was famous for its charity.
At the monastery there was an orphanage with a school, an almshouse, a school for visiting peasant girls, a mixed school for peasant children (at the All Saints Church), and also a school in the village. Lemzha (now Streletskaya Sloboda, Ruzaevsky district of the Republic of Moldova). To accommodate orphan students and teachers, a special two-story building was built, on the first floor of which there was a dining room, a kitchen and a room for nun inspectors who looked after the children, and on the second there were bedrooms for about 40 pupils and apartments for the teacher and her assistant. The orphan school of the monastery received gold medals at all-Russian exhibitions of church education. In the beginning. XX century The orphan school was reorganized into a school-church - an original spiritual and educational institution that had no analogues in the Volga region. In 1918, the monastery was chosen as the headquarters of the 1st Revolutionary Army, as well as the location of a military hospital. The nuns became sisters of mercy. In 1919, the Paigarmsky state farm was formed on the lands of the monastery, which existed for a very short time. After the collapse of the state farm, the monastery housed a regional hospital, some of the buildings were occupied by railway warehouses, including the Ascension Church. A village grew up on the site of the gardens and part of the park; the cemetery church, the temple over the spring, the bell tower, walls and entrance towers were scrapped.
The last owner of the monastery was the Ministry of Defense, which placed reserve pharmacy warehouses in Paigarm. For the convenience of storing boxes with drugs, both stone temples were divided into two floors by ceilings, and I-beams of metal were embedded directly into the frescoes. With the organization of the Saransk diocese, the question arose about returning the monastery to believers. The Ministry of Defense first returned the Assumption Cathedral, the tomb and the building of the former refectory, then the Church of the Ascension, and several cell buildings of the southern row. In the second half of 1997, the nuns returned to the large stone building of the western part of the complex and the building of the former monastery hospital, which had lost the head of the house church, but retained the apse. Today, over fifty nuns live, work and pray in the Paygarm Monastery. The Assumption Cathedral was brought back to life, the church over the source was rebuilt, the Ascension Church was being restored, and the foundation of the bell tower was laid. The monastery has a courtyard in Saransk - a church in the name of the Nativity of Christ, converted from a household outbuilding to a standard high-rise building in the North-Western microdistrict. The temple has a large parish, and all income goes to the restoration of Paigarm buildings. A clear indicator of the new “recognition” of the ancient monastery is the flow of pilgrims, growing every day, and especially many young people, schoolchildren and students visit Paigarm.
“Servant of God, blessed elder Gregory! A seer and a patient wanderer on earth for the sake of God, who had no head to lay. Help us please! And do not leave us with your intercession and heavenly prayers before the Lord!” We heard this prayer at the resting place of the holy fool Grisha, who was buried on the territory of the Paygarm Paraskeva-Voznesensky convent.
ML correspondents went to our neighbors in Mordovia to learn more about our fellow countryman and tell readers about Blessed Gregory of Paygarm. However, our excursion turned out to be much more detailed...
INSTEAD OF A PROLOGUE
The sun, no longer warming like winter, blinded my eyes and set me in a spring mood. Here and there on the hills, black and wet earth peeked out as it warmed up. And the puddles that appeared on the highway indicated that very soon there would be thawed patches everywhere and the streams would ring. In this weather, an hour and a half of the road flew by unnoticed. Ruzaevka remains on the right, and the monastery is now a stone's throw away - only six kilometers.
The monastery, as was customary by our ancestors, was built on a hill so that it could be seen from afar. The golden domes of ancient temples and the soaring bell tower involuntarily attracted the eye. It feels as if from our crazy century we have found ourselves at least in the century before last. The silence is pristine, and only the snow creaks underfoot.
The first thing that struck me was the neatly cleared paths running in all directions: to churches and chapels, a holy spring and a refectory, a well and a nursing building. But there's not a soul around. It’s as if everything was done, like in a fairy tale, at the behest of a pike...
We dial the telephone number of Mother Superior Angelina: “Good afternoon! These are journalists from Penza.” And in response: “God bless you! Hello. Waiting for you. Go to the refectory. Grab a snack on the way, and Mother Antonina will be waiting for you there. She will show you everything and tell you everything.”
You can create legends about the monastery cuisine: it seems like nothing special, but no, it will always surprise you. And this time the buckwheat porridge with baked milk was simply mind-blowing! The bread from the monastery bakery reminded me of my grandmother’s - from a Russian oven. And fresh cottage cheese and pancakes (Maslenitsa, after all!) simply melted in your mouth. Save me, God! Well, excuse me, we didn’t call you to the kitchen.
THANK YOU MESS KISELOVA!
“And-and, my dear, it was a long time ago. They say about three hundred years ago,” intones the nun Pavlina. - One soldier, who was from Ruzaevka, had severe pain in his legs, so much so that the disease could not be treated. And then a woman with a cross in her hands appeared to the serviceman in a dream: “Do you want to be healthy? Do you want to go home?” And so on for three nights in a row.
For the last time, the saint told the soldier that he needed to go to the village of Paigarma, where he would see a barrel of water and an image in it. This is where the chapel should be built and the found icon should be placed in it. That’s how it all happened, killer. The image found was of the martyr Paraskeva. So a chapel appeared at the source, and from that time Orthodox people began to go there, the flow of which does not dry up to this day.” - “What about that soldier?” - we are keenly interested. “Recovered,” the nun nods. “All illnesses began to pass him by.”
Alas, there have always been enough envious people on earth. The local gentleman from the Struisky family was no exception, who ordered the pond to be buried and the icon to be moved to the Ruzaevsky church. Only now the water again and again made its way through the earthen rubble, and the image of Paraskeva miraculously returned to its original place.
Only after this land went to the local peasants from Mordovian Pishli and Boldov, they decided to give it to a monastery. And for help and support they turned to Penza to the well-known benefactor throughout Russia, “state councilor and cavalry lady” Maria Mikhailovna Kiseleva. And on July 20, 1865, she obtained permission to open the community.
Our fellow countrywoman became the main donor and trustee of the community. And after her death, another Penzyak woman, Alexandra Stepanovna Radishcheva, became the new trustee of the monastery.
The first nuns lived in wooden cells covered with thatch. With God's help, a year later a church in honor of the Ascension of the Lord was built and consecrated, then a small cell building, and on October 18, 1884, by decree of the Holy Synod, the community was renamed the Paraskeva-Voznesensky Convent.
By the way, the first head of the community was also our fellow countrywoman, the ryassophore nun of the Keren Tikhvin Monastery Pelageya Smirnova. Her assistant Anisiya Karyakina also came to Paygarma with her.
Ascetics of Piety
“Not all the surrounding peasants treated the first nuns kindly,” says our guide to the monastery, Mother Antonina (also, by the way, a Penzyak, former director of a secondary school in the Issinsky district). “But the ascetic life and Christian meekness of the nuns soon melted the ice of alienation.”
Soon, among the women and girls from the surrounding villages, there appeared those who wished to share their hard life with the nuns. Apparently, firm faith in God completely dominated their souls, and therefore they did not know obstacles, did not see enemies, remembering the words of the Holy Scripture: “The Lord is the protector of my life, whom will I fear? Even if a regiment turns against me, my heart will not fear.”
But life in the community was clearly not easy. Because of such scarcity, nun Anisia decided to leave the monastery and return to Kerensk. Then Saint Paraskeva appeared to her in a dream and “...showed her many well-appointed cells and a spacious refectory, where monastic sisters sat at a large table on both sides.” Paraskeva told Anisia: “You have no will to leave here, I am your patroness.”
The monastery also remembers everyone who promoted among the sisters “the spirit of unceasing prayerful sobriety, meekness and humility”, those who taught the nuns by living example that “true happiness does not consist in the blessings of life, but in the cleansing of the soul from all filth in the feats of fasting, prayer, continuous vigilance.” First of all, Abbess Paraskeva and Eupraxia.
By 1914, 502 people (70 minors) lived in the monastery, of whom 332 were on probation. On the territory of the monastery there were two stone cathedrals - the Assumption and the Ascension, a majestic bell tower, three house churches and two wooden churches. And this is not counting residential buildings and outbuildings. And today the arrangement of the monastery is continued by nun Angelina, who has two higher educations: economics and law. In 2006, during a visit to the Paigarm Paraskeva-Voznesensky Monastery by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', the nun was elevated to the rank of abbess.
UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE
“Whole families come to us and kneel before Paraskevushka, thanking us for our help,” Mother Antonina earnestly crosses herself. “Recoveries unexplained by medicine have happened more than once in this area, including in recent years. In 1998, the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos was consecrated. The event brought together many people, among whom was my student Vanya Zhuvaikin. The boy was blind in his left eye from birth. But after several anointings, Vanya began to see!”
Recently, a woman from Ukraine lived here for several days with a cancerous lump the size of a chicken egg. The doctors insisted on an operation, but the sick woman’s brother, who had once served near Paigarma, brought his sister to Paraskeva. When they arrived, the cancer patient’s temperature was over forty. But she still went to the source where she bathed.
By morning the woman felt much better, and after repeated prayers to Paraskeva, the blessed elder Gregory and ablutions at the spring, the lump resolved. There wasn't even a trace left. Don't believe me? So all this is recorded in the monastery books and handwritten notes of those healed.
And the local driver’s son suddenly became sore that his whole body was covered with purulent scabs. However, after the first bath, “... all the sores turned out to be floating in the water,” and a week later the boy was completely healed.
Today's benefactor of the monastery - Ruzaevsky entrepreneur - after praying to Paraskeva and Grisha Paigarmsky and bathing in the spring, he was cured of radiculitis. And there are already dozens of similar examples.
GRISHA PAYGARMSKY
The “seer and patient wanderer on earth” was born in 1851 in the village of Kochetovka, Narovchatsky district, Penza province. He began acting as a fool at an early age, becoming like a baby in everything. As a young man he settled in Paigarm and often visited the monastery. He always walked barefoot and wore a red women's Mordovian sundress and jacket. He wore a scarf and a white monastic apostle on his head. He always had a lot of crosses, icons, chains, rosaries, beads, stones and toy jewelry hanging around his neck.
The ascetic very often denounced local and visiting sinners and predicted their fate, which came true exactly. The holy fool became famous throughout Russia for his insight. Peasants and very rich and famous people of the most noble families came to him. One day, the blessed one with an accordion ran into the bishop’s chambers located on the territory of the monastery and began to sing and dance in them. The sisters then kicked out the holy fool: they could not understand that by doing this he predicted the future fate of the chambers of the lord and the temple of the Archangel Michael, in which the club was located in Soviet times.
For several years before his death, the blessed one lived in the monastery itself. He predicted his own death exactly a week in advance: “I need to get married on Friday, after the Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary. There will be a wedding, and the groom will marry me.” Right on Pokrov, Grisha fell ill with pneumonia and died a week later in October 1906. He was buried in the monastery. And year after year, the pilgrimage to his grave only increases.