New Jerusalem Monastery
Encyclopedia
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
, located in the town of Istra
Istra
Istra is a town and the administrative center of Istrinsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Istra River, west of Moscow, on the Moscow–Riga railway...
in Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.
The New Jerusalem Monastery was founded in 1656 by Patriarch Nikon
Patriarch Nikon
Nikon , born Nikita Minin , was the seventh patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church...
as a patriarchal residence on the outskirts of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. The monastery took its name from the New Jerusalem
New Jerusalem
In the book of Ezekiel, the Prophecy of New Jerusalem is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city to be established to the south of the Temple Mount that will be inhabited by the twelve tribes of Israel in the...
. This site was chosen for its resemblance to the Holy Land. The River Istra represents the Jordan, and the buildings represent the 'sacral space' or holy places of Jerusalem. In his time, Patriarch Nikon recruited a number of monks of non-Russian origin to populate the monastery, as it was intended to represent the multinational Orthodoxy of the Heavenly Jerusalem . The architectural ensemble of the monastery includes the Resurrection Cathedral (1656–1685), identical to a cathedral of the same name in Jerusalem, Patriarch Nikon's residence (1658), stone wall with towers (1690–1694), Church of the Holy Trinity (1686–1698), and other buildings, all of them finished with majolica
Maiolica
Maiolica is Italian tin-glazed pottery dating from the Renaissance. It is decorated in bright colours on a white background, frequently depicting historical and legendary scenes.-Name:...
and stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
moulding. Architects P.I.Zaborsky, Yakov Bukhvostov
Yakov Bukhvostov
Yakov Grigoryevich Bukhvostov was a Russian architect, associated with the Naryshkin Baroque style. It has been documented that he constructed a number of buildings, in and around Moscow and one in Ryazan, of red brick with rich external white-stone decoration.-Career:The biography of Bukhvostov...
, Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli was an Italian architect naturalized Russian. He developed an easily recognizable style of Late Baroque, both sumptuous and majestic...
, Matvei Kazakov, Karl Blank
Karl Blank
Karl Blank was a Russian architect, notable as one of the last practitioners of Baroque architecture and the first Moscow architect to build early neoclassical buildings. His surviving, undisputed legacy consists of three baroque churches and Moscow Orphanage...
and others took part in the creation of this ensemble. In the 17th century, the New Jerusalem Monastery owned a large library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, compiled by Nikon from manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s taken from other monasteries. By the time of the secularization
Secularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...
of 1764, the monastery possessed some 13,000 peasants.
2nd SS Division Das Reich
The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich was a Waffen-SS division during World War II. It is considered to be an elite formation amongst the thirty-eight divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS....
ransacked the New Jerusalem Monastery. Before their retreat they blew up its unique great belfry; the towers were demolished; the vaults of the cathedral collapsed and buried its famous iconostasis, among other treasures . In 1959, the museum was re-opened to the public, although the bell-tower has never been rebuilt, while the interior of the cathedral is still bare. The New Jerusalem Monastery was re-established as a religious community only in the 1990s.
In March 2009 Russian president Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
signed a presidential decree on the restoration and renovation of the New Jerusalem Monastery. The federal government
Government of Russia
The Government of the Russian Federation exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister , the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers...
was instructed to subsidize the monastery restoration fund from the federal budget from 2009, with deputy prime minister Viktor Zubkov estimating it will cost about 13–20 billion roubles.
Links
- New Jerusalem
- Tower of New Jerusalem kremlin
- Tower Varuha
- Tower of New Jurusalem
- Walls and towers of New Jerusalem fortress
