Spaso-Preobrazhenskiy Monastery in Yeniseysk

Spassky Monastery in Yeniseisk is one of the oldest monasteries in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and one of the most beautiful architectural ensembles in Siberian architecture. The legend tells that in 1592 a desert- killer settled in these places, a certain monk Timofey Ivanov, around whom a small monastic community gathered, and in 1642 the monastery was not founded, but only received “approval from the highest authorities” - from the Tobolsk archbishop Gerasim.

The Yeniseysk Monastery was for a long time poorly populated and poor - neither the land granted to it, nor the mills and fishing, nor the salt baskets brought a lot of income. All the buildings of the monastery remained wooden for over a hundred years, and only in the 1730s stone construction started here.

The first stone building of the monastery was the elegant and majestic Spassky Cathedral, built in the traditions of the Siberian Baroque. It was consecrated in the 1750s. Later, the Ilyinsky chapel, the warm Pokrovskaya church and the bell tower were added to the main church.

The Spassky Monastery played the role of an important missionary and educational center for many years. Since 1780, under him there was a "school for all classes", later transformed into a parish school.

The monastery was badly damaged in Soviet times. The entire interior of the churches was destroyed, some of the buildings were destroyed, and the surviving buildings were badly damaged. The revival of the monastery began only in 1990.
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Source: pobragenski.cerkov.ru
Photo: V. Ivanov, A. Schetinin, D. Tarkhnishvili