There are just two Lavras in Russia: one is Holy
Trinity Saint Sergius Lavra near Moscow; the other is St. Alexander Nevsky
Lavra in Saint Petersburg. There are lots of visitors in St. Alexander Nevsky
Lavra, both pilgrims and tourists. It seems that there isn’t anything new to be
told about this Lavra. Is that the case? What do most people know about it
except the most basic “tourist-oriented” stuff? Nowadays, during the 300th
anniversary of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra, we would like to offer you several
interesting facts about this monastery.
1. The place where
the monastery was founded in the beginning of the 18th century, was
called Victoria because, according to one account, it was there that the
victorious battle of Holy Prince Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky against the
Swedes took place.
2. The first
printing house in Saint Petersburg was opened in the monastery in 1720. The
Slavic School “for teaching young children to read and write” was opened here
in 1721. That school laid the foundation of a whole network of church-operated
schools. Saint Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy and Seminary has its
origins in that school.
3. There are relics
of Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky and a particle of relics of
Saint Innocent of Irkutsk in St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra. These relics were
taken away from the Lavra to the Museum of Religion and Atheism in 1922 and
returned to the Lavra in 1989.
4. Many monks of
the Lavra were persecuted for Christ’s sake. Almost all namestniks of the Lavra
since 1917 until it was closed in 1933 were executed. Archbishop Prokopius
(Titov) of Odessa and Kherson who was the namestnik of the Lavra since 1917,
was killed by a firing squad, too. When Red Army soldiers attempted to seize
the Lavra in January 1918, he refused to give them keys from the storehouses,
which led to his arrest and subsequent release after believers’ protests.
Memorial Sign in
honor of the New Martyrs, St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra
5. The memorial
cemetery of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra is the place of eternal rest for many
famous people, e.g., Fyodor Dostoyevsky (whose last will was to be buried
there), Vassily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Karamzin, Mikhail Lomonosov, Alexander
Suvorov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky (who was buried there upon a direct order of Emperor
Alexander III).
6. The Soviet
government, which was based in Petrograd at that time, decided to confiscate
the buildings of the Lavra in January of 1918. Alexandra Kollontai, the
People’s Commissar of Social Welfare, issued a decree and sent armed soldiers
to the Lavra. However, they were blocked by a religious procession of 500,000
locals who came to defend the Lavra. It’s hard to imagine a crowd of such size
nowadays… The Soviet officials gave up. The Lavra continued to exist for
fifteen more years.
7. St. Alexander
Nevsky Fraternity, established in the Lavra on January 21, 1918, was a unique
phenomenon for the post-Revolution Russia. In spite of the ban on missionary
and social work of the Church, the members of that Fraternity continued their
spiritual education and charity efforts in Petrograd illegally until 1932. When
the God’s Law was excluded from school curriculum, the Fraternity members led
by Hieromonk Leo (Egorov) rolled out an extensive project of Christian
education for children and adolescents. The monks of the Lavra and lay brothers
taught church singing and Church Slavonic to the children, held special meals
and even special “children’s” Liturgies where children could sing, read, and
help the priest.
Church of the Holy Annunciation of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra
8. Holy
Annunciation Church (the first stone church in the Lavra) is located on the
territory of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra but isn’t monastery property even now.
It is used as a museum of urban sculpture now. The monastery attempts to get
this church back.
9. However
paradoxical it may sound, there is a Communist Memorial in the center of the
Lavra. There are graves of famous proletarian warriors and heroes, party
officials of the early days of the Soviet rule, party leaders, generals, and
engineers near the entrance to Holy Trinity Cathedral on both sides of the
alley that leads to the Metropolitan’s Office.
10. When the Lavra
was re-opened in 1994, its first namestnik was Archimandrite Kirill (Nachis), a
former prisoner of Nazi and Soviet labor camps. The current namestnik, Bishop
Nazarius (Lavrinenko), actively uses modern technologies, such as Facebook.
Article and Photos by Vitaly Kaplan
Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds
Source: https://foma.ru/aleksandro-nevskaya-lavra.html
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