Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (Russian: Кирилло-Белозерский монастырь), known in English as White Lake St. Cyril's Monastery, is a Russian Orthodox monastery in Kirillov, Russia. It used to be the largest monastery and the strongest fortress in Northern Russia.

The monastery was consecrated to the feast of the

History

The monastery was founded in 1397 on the bank of

Being a member of the influential

The smaller Ivanovsky priory is dedicated to St. John the Precursor, the patron saint of Ivan the Terrible. The oldest church of the priory was commissioned by Ivan's father, for the benefit of the "mendicant brethren," soon after his visit to the monastery in 1528. Subsequently, the monks incurred the tsar's displeasure by constructing St. Vladimir's Chapel over the grave of the exiled Prince Vorotynsky. Although the tsar chastised them for having broken canonical requirements, the chapel — which became the first family mausoleum in Russia — survived Ivan's reign and was expanded to its present form in 1623.

The monastery walls, 732 meters long and 7 meters thick, were constructed in 1654-80. They incorporate parts of the earlier citadel, which helped to withstand the Polish siege in 1612. The first construction works were supervised by Jean de Gron, a French military engineer known in Russian sources as Anton Granovsky. After the monastic authorities denigrated his Western-style design as alien to Russian traditions, Granovsky was replaced by a team of native masters. The fortress was the largest erected in Muscovy after the Time of Troubles; its walls feature numerous towers, each built to a particular design. The most remarkable are the Chasuble, the Tent-like, the Vologda, and the Smithy towers.

After secularisation

After the Bolsheviks, the monastery was secularised and turned into a museum (1924), a wooden shrine from 1485 and several traditional timber structures were put on exhibit on the grounds. During Soviet restoration works, superb 16th-century frescoes were discovered in the gate church of St. Sergius (1560–94).

On the other hand, the monastic

The larger part of the monastery is still administered as the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum of History, Art, and Architecture.[2] The monks were readmitted into the Ivanovsky priory in 1998. As of 2011, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was one of the four functioning monasteries in Vologda Oblast.

The ensemble of the monastery has been designated as a cultural heritage monument of federal significance.^[3] As of January 2013, images from the monastery and grounds were available on Google Street View.

Gallery

• 
  View from the lake (2021)
• 
  A 1897 view
• 
  Great Uspensky Monastery
• 
  Maly Ivanovsky monastery
• 
  Church of St.John the Baptist
• 
  Moskovskaya tower

References

Further reading

• Brumfield, William C. Kirillov, Ferapontovo (Moscow: Tri Kvadrata, 2009)
  ISBN 978-5946071093
  (in Russian and in English)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kirillo-Belozersky_Monastery.

• Kirillo-Belozersky monastery - the official site(in Russian)
• Kirillo-Belozersky museum - the official site(in Russian)