Inkerman Cave Monastery
| Inkerman Cave Monastery | |
|---|---|
Ukrainian: Інкерманський печерний монастир | |
 One of the Inkerman Cave Monastery chapels in 2012. | |
  Inkerman Cave Monastery .jpg) Inkerman Cave Monastery  Inkerman Cave Monastery | |
| General information | |
| Location | Inkerman, Crimea |
| Country | |
| Coordinates | 44°36′13.32″N 33°36′26.72″E / 44.6037000°N 33.6074222°E |
| Construction started | 1850 |
| Owner | Russian Orthodox Church |
| Official name | Фортеця Каламіта та Печерний монастир в Інкермані (Kalamita Fortress and the Cave Monastery in Inkerman) |
| Type | Architecture |
| Reference no. | 270022 |
 | |
The Inkerman Monastery of St. Clement (Russian: Инкерманский Свято-Климентовский пещерный монастырь; Ukrainian: Інкерманський печерний монастир) is a cave monastery in a cliff rising near the mouth of the Black River, in the city of Inkerman, de facto administered as part of the sea port of Sevastopol but de jure belonging to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
History
[edit]
It was founded in 1850 on the site of a medieval Byzantine monastery where the relics of St. Clement were supposedly kept before their removal to San Clemente by Saints Cyril and Methodius. The early Christians are supposed to have kept the relics in a grotto which could be visited only on the anniversary of his death. William Rubruck described it as a church "built by the hands of angels".[1]
The Byzantine monastery, probably founded in the 8th century by icon-venerators fleeing persecution in their homeland, had eight chapels of several storeys and an inn accessed by a stairway.[2] The caves of Inkerman were surveyed by Peter Simon Pallas in 1793 and looted by the British in the 1850s.
The Russians added two churches, commemorating the Borki Incident (1895) and the Crimean War (1905). The monastery was damaged by the 1927 Crimean earthquakes and was closed between 1931 and 1991. During World War II the caves housed the officers of a Soviet army defending Sevastopol.[3] Several churches were taken down by the Soviets.
In 2019, weekly services were resumed in the Church of Clement of Rome with the blessing of Archimandrite Kallinik (Chernyshyov), the dean of the monasteries of the Crimean diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.[4]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "The iournal of frier William de Rubruquis". Ebooks.adelaide.edu.au. Archived from the original on 30 March 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
- ^ "КРЫМСКАЯ область". Ua.vlasenko.net. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
- ^ "ИНКЕРМАНСКИЙ СВЯТО-КЛИМЕНТОВСКИЙ МОНАСТЫРЬ" (in Russian). Archived from the original on December 23, 2009. Retrieved August 1, 2010.
- ^ "В Свято-Климентовском Инкерманском монастыре г. Севастополя возобновлены богослужения в пещерном храмовом комплексе". Монастырский вестник (in Russian). 26 January 2019.
External links
[edit]
Media related to Inkerman monastery at Wikimedia Commons
- Buildings and structures in Sevastopol
- Cave monasteries
- Christianity in Crimea
- Cultural heritage monuments in Sevastopol
- Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Ukraine
- Monasteries in Crimea
- Monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
- Objects of cultural heritage of Russia of federal significance
- Russian Orthodox monasteries in Russia
- Tourist attractions in Sevastopol
- Tourist attractions in Crimea