Antoniev Monastery
58°32′21″N31°17′22″E/ 58.53917°N 31.28944°E
TheAntoniev Monastery( "St Anthony's Monastery",Russian:Антониев монастырь) rivalled theYuriev Monasteryas the most important monastery of medievalNovgorod the Great.It stands along the right bank of theVolkhov Rivernorth of the city centre and forms part of theHistoric Monuments of Novgorod and Surroundings,aWorld Heritage Site.
The monastery was founded in 1117 bySt Anthony of Rome,who, according to legend, flew to Novgorod from Rome on a rock (the alleged rock is now in the vestibule just to the right of the main door into the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God beneath a fresco of BishopNikita of Novgorod). Anthony was consecrated hegumen of the monastery in 1131 by ArchbishopNifont(1130–1156) and was buried beneath a large slab to the right of the altar in the same church.
TheChurch of the Nativity of the Mother of God,like the Church of St. George in theYuriev Monastery,is one of the few three-domed churches in Russia. It is also one of the few buildings in Russia which survived from the 12th century. It was founded by Anthony in 1117 and completed in 1119. There are some frescoes from the Middle Ages still extant, most notably in the apse, but most are from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries and are in some disrepair.
Kirik the Novgorodianwas a monk of the monastery famous for writing the first mathematical treatise in Eastern Slavdom, the "Teaching on Numbers", a theological work known as "The Questions of Kirik" and a few entries in theNovgorodian First Chronicle.[1]
The monastery owned lands in Vodskaya and Shelonskayapyatinasmaking it the fourth-largest landowner among the Novgorodian monasteries. A significant part of its lands were confiscated after the conquest of Novgorod by Moscow however the monastery gradually restored its position thanks to gifts and acquisitions. The hegumen and the monks of the monastery were killed by the forces of Ivan IV during theMassacre of Novgorod.The cult of St Anthony, the founder of the monastery, increased in importance after the miraculous discovery of his remains in 1597. In the second half of the 17th century the archbishops of Novgorod favoured the monastery. Multiple stone buildings were erected and in 1740 aseminarywas founded.[2]
The monastery is currently part of the Novgorod United Museum-Preserve and has not been returned to theRussian Orthodox Church.
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References[edit]
- ^E. K. Piotrovskaia, “Kirik Novgorodets,” in D. S. Likhachev, ed.,Slovar knizhnikov i knizhnosti drevnei Rusi,3 Vols. in 5 Pts. Leningrad and St. Petersburg: Nauk, 1987–1993. Vol. 1 (XI–pervaia polovina XIV vv.), (Leningrad: Nauk, 1987); Kirik Novgorodets, “Uchenie im zha vedati cheloveku chisla vsekh let,”Istoriko-matematicheskie issledovannia4 (1953): 174–191.
- ^Янин, В.Л., ed. (2007).Великий Новгород. История и культура IX-XVII веков. Энциклопедический словарь(in Russian). Нестор-История. pp. 300–301.ISBN5981872365.
- Robert Michell and Neville Forbes, ed.,The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471(New York: American Medieval Society Press, 1970), 9-10, 12.