Diveyevo Convent

From the Diveyevo Convent entry in Wikipedia:

Serafimo-Diveevsky Monastery, or Saint Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery, or Holy Trinity-Saint Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery is a monastery of nuns (convent) in Diveyevo settlement near Sarov (12 km (7 miles)), and near the city of Nizhny Novgorod (185 km (115 miles)), in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is situated in a region considered to have immense spiritual significance.

The convent is famous because Saint Seraphim of Sarov served as Staretz (Elder) for the nuns of this monastery, though he only traveled to the convent once during his lifetime. He was a monk at the nearby monastery of Sarov. After the fall of communism, his relics, which had been feared lost, were discovered in the storeroom of a "museum of atheism" in Saint Petersburg and solemnly transferred to the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery, which has come to be named after him.

The monastery started with the Church of Our Lady of Kazan (Kazanskaya), built in 1773-1780. Saint Seraphim blessed the construction of two churches adjoined to Kazanskaya: The Church of the Nativity of Christ (1829) and the Church of the Nativity of Theotokos (1830). The large Trinity Cathedral with its bell tower was constructed in 1865-1875.

All pictures are © Dr. Günther Eichhorn, unless otherwise noted.