The Monastery Archive

Daily tasks

The term “monastery archives” might evoke images of ancient scrolls, crumbling manuscripts, and the darkness of twilight under low monastery arches. In our monastery, however, the archives are not like that at all. They are located in a brightly-lit room, with a computer and all the materials catalogued by year. As you go by the shelves, you can see the headings: 1796, 1843. 1908, etc. They contain correspondence with the diocesan chancellery, ukases from the Holy Synod, lists of names of the inhabitants of the monastery orphanage. From the “Register of the monastics, rassophores, and novices of the Novo-Tikhvin Women's Monastery” we learn that in 1912 the Monastery had 1061 inhabitants. Then came the Soviet period. From 1920 — the inventory of monastery property. From 1937 — the judicial proceedings against clergy and sisters, then the lists of sisters subjected to repression. Moving on to the contemporary life of the Convent, we find records of tonsure, the restoration of churches, the opening of an Orthodox dining hall and orphanage.

A great deal of work has been done, and is still being done on the gathering of materials for the canonization of new Saints.

Pre-revolutionary photographs of the sisters

It must be said that we only recently began to maintain the archives professionally, when we brought in specialists in the keeping of documents, historians, architects and specialists in the Ural region. One other invaluable source of information is the memories of ordinary inhabitants of Ekaterinburg. Their memories have preserved things that cannot be found in any government archive or depicted in any photo album. One person attended the church of Saint Alexander Nevsky in Zelenaya Roshcha (Green Grove) and remembers its majesty; another kept in her home embroidery or wax flowers made by the hands of the sisters of the Convent.

As we work to establish the archive, we are planning in time to open a Monastery museum. We hope that there are still many historical finds for this endeavor in the future, and we ask anyone who can help us in this regard kindly to do so.

You can reach us by e-mail: skit@sestry.ru