The monastery was returned to the Church in 2018 in a ruined state. In this regard, the Vladmir Theotokos Hermitage, near Vologda, in the village of Luchnikovo, is one of hundreds and thousands of other monasteries that once made up the spiritual glory of Russia. According to Hieromonk Laurus (Arkhipov), the abbot of the monastery, spiritual glory nowadays lies in the restoration of Christian communities of believers, which are truly the living Body of the Church. The work we use to rebuild helps us bring back a society driven by the Gospel commandments. The restoration of walls and buildings is a secondary task, while the primary task is people. This labor consists of both bodily and spiritual work—these are the fundamental conditions for bringing the country out of its dangerous darkness.
The video below is in Russian, but shows various scenes from the life of the monastery:
A little Vologda dialectology and piety
I ask Fr. Laurus where this name—Zaonikiev Hermitage—came from. The explanation is quite simple, he says:
Anika was a bandit who settled in the forests near Vologda. In the local Vologda dialect, his name became “Onika.” He was so active that the people even started calling the forests northwest of the city “Onikiev.” The monastery was built behind these forests, and that’s where the name Zaonikiev1 comes from.
The monastery itself was founded by an ordinary peasant, Hilarion, the future St. Joseph, in 1588 on the spot where the icon of the Theotokos appeared to him. The peasant prayed for healing from the blindness that had befallen him, and according to his life, first the Unmercenary Saints Cosmas and Damian appeared to him and led him to the edge of this robber’s forest and told him that the next day he would receive healing from the Most Holy Theotokos. And that’s what happened. Having seen the image of the Theotokos, Hilarion received healing. This occurred on the feast of the Vladimir Icon of the Theotokos, June 3, which is especially revered in Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, where I lived for sixteen years; so the symbolic connection is obvious for me.
St. Joseph of Zaonikiev Having received healing and regained his physical sight, Hilarion showed the acuity of his spiritual vision: He didn’t forget to thank Christ. The peasant built a chapel here, where he placed the self-appearing icon for veneration and the glorification of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother. That’s how miracles began in the former bandit territories: People saw that yesterday’s sick were healed, the grieving were comforted, and more and more people came more often to this place with prayer. And when the flow of people became unceasing, the local bishop, St. Anthony of Vologda, who is highly revered here for his wisdom and meekness, decreed the construction of a new monastery. The bishop asked Hilarion to become the abbot of the monastery, but he refused. “What kind of abbot would I make, Your Eminence? I should be at least a simple monk first!” Thus he became Joseph, the first tonsured monk and inhabitant of the Zaonikiev Hermitage. The life of the saint tells us that he also bore the labor of foolishness for Christ. To mortify his flesh, the saint carried stones, sand, or dirt against his chest. He went barefoot all year. Under his clothes he wore a hair shirt, so rough that his body bled. Sensing his approaching death, he asked to be buried in the chapel that he himself built. He departed to the Lord in 1612, and his disciples, Anthony and Ioanniky, future saints, buried him.
Hieromonk Laurus (Arkhipov) serves Nativity Liturgy
The monastery was small and wooden; it began its ministry during the Time of Troubles and fully experienced all the horrors of that time—not only devastation by the Poles, which also affected the northern regions of Russia, but also the ensuing secularization and impoverishment it caused, losing its official standing with the state. By the nineteenth century, the monastic life here was barely flickering. It’s sad, of course: The country was supposed to be Orthodox, yet the monastery was on the brink of extinction.
The secret of a good miracle
But in the nineteenth century, Igumen Seraphim (Zaostrovsky) became the abbot of the monastery, and over the course of thirty-three years under his leadership, the poor monastery became prosperous: A new stone Vladimir Church with a bell tower and a new residential building were built, the Psalter began to be read continuously in the skete church; a guest house for pilgrims was built, and carpentry, sewing, and shoemaking workshops, and a school for peasant children were opened. Amazingly, the previously forgotten and downtrodden monastery became one of the main ones in this area, no less famous than the St. Cyril of White Lake Monastery, for example. St. John of Kronstadt came to the Zaonikiev Hermitage and held long talks with Archimandrite Seraphim. There was a huge flow of pilgrims.
Vladimir Cathedral today
At the start of construction, probably many people thought it was crazy. Why is this strange abbot taking up such a task? But I think this is the same story as with the restoration, or better yet, the establishment of the Optina Hermitage. A poor little monastery gradually turns into a prosperous monastery. Construction begins, creating jobs for the local population. I think we all have a good idea of what happens to a man when he doesn’t have the opportunity to use his energy for good. The same was true in the case of Zaonikiev Monastery: Massive construction began and drunkenness and crime sharply decreased. The locals labored and saw the fruits of their labor, and thus they took care of the monastery. Then they (illiterate, downtrodden peasants) sent their children to schools founded by the caring abbot, and they didn’t have to struggle without work—there was always something to do. From a worldly point of view, to start rebuilding a forgotten monastery is a strange idea, with no prospects. But if it pleases God, then cooperation in this matter brings good fruit for all those involved in it—this is probably the “secret” of a good miracle.
Zaonikiev Vladimir Theotokos Hermitage
Fr. Laurus notes that the level of spiritual education used to be much higher than it is now:
Even without considering theological education, but looking at the most basic popular piety, in my opinion, it was qualitatively and quantitatively better in earlier times, especially in the 18th-19th centuries. The vast majority of parishes had schools, the peasant children received a decent education, the priests were well educated, and so all people were quite literate in religious terms. The Church was well represented in all areas of human life and it was natural to be a Christian. It seems to me the peasants were even more inclined to faith than the so-called “elite” class, which was mindlessly carried away by Western trends. On the other hand, we have representatives of the genuine elite (both in the secular and spiritual sense) like St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) or our great writers. One way or another, in my opinion, people from every social class really strove for faith. I don’t share the skepticism that the peasants came to the monastery in a “pagan” way, “to an icon looking for a miracle.” I think the people understood perfectly well Who they were coming to, Who helps and under what conditions. If the Most Holy Theotokos gave our ancestors what they prayerfully entreated before her icon, then it follows that their prayers were strong, proper, not pharisaical but rather like the prayer of the publican—that’s what matters. Of course, I acknowledge that amidst those who prayed there would have been those whom today we call “tourists”—curious onlookers—but I’m sure the majority of the people came with sincere prayer.
In my opinion, any icon is miraculous. Any. But that’s a separate discussion.
Ruin
The Zaonikiev Hermitage before its closure in the twentieth century
It may seem that Orthodox Rus’ stood immovable, unshakeable, but here’s a record made some eighteen years later by Abbot Mark:
Economically, the monastery’s in a most pitiful state. All the lands belonging to it, with both living and dead inventory, were taken by the commune. There’s neither horse nor cow. The monastery inhabitants constantly suffer insults from the communists, manifested in the constant harassment of the brothers and denunciations. They curse with the vilest words and often threaten to kill in a rage. The monastery has no peace from constant searches, as well as accusations of agitation and supposedly making proclamations, and the like.
Fr. Laurus tells how the militant atheists desecrated icons with wild, self-destructive fervor. And it wasn’t just some outsiders or transients, but specifically local people:
No, they didn’t just burn them: they gouged out the eyes, made furniture and platforms for stages out of them, used them as props. What they did to the churches, you can see for yourself. The abomination of desolation. But does this mean that what was sacred ceased to be sacred? Of course not. It means that the sacred departed from the human soul, but remained sacred in itself. And it’s up to each man himself to return to holiness.
On the site of the Zaonikiev Hermitage, first they set up something like a concentration camp—a “special settlement” for dispossessed peasants—both Vologda locals and exiles from western provinces. The locals called them “cross-bearers.” According to residents, many prisoners were dying; the famine was terrible. There was a firing range nearby, and now a chapel has been built there in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.
During World War II, a flight detachment was stationed on the territory of the monastery, and after the war they set up the Zaonikiev Special Correctional Boarding School here.
Tea with parishioners after the Sunday Liturgy
No time for daydreaming—we need work and prayer
How many monks are there at the Zaonikiev Hermitage now? We can say that the monastic community is at the very start of its rebirth. But Fr. Laurus isn’t discouraged: He serves molebens and Liturgies here every week. After all, Sretensky Monastery also faced enormous difficulties in its early days that were overcome with God’s help. The example of his native monastery inspires and supports him in his work towards reviving one of the monasteries of the Northern Thebaid.
How to keep up the struggle? With what? With the proven Christian weapons: prayer, patience, and enlightenment. The most effective means, according to Fr. Laurus, have been repeatedly tested. There’s no wishful thinking here—no blissful daydreams about a toy lavra with the sweet chiming of bells and birds of Paradise and fish in the pond. Fr. Laurus is firmly convinced that the ministry of the reviving monastery should first and foremost be prayer and Christian enlightenment of the once-Christian people.
It wasn’t without God’s providence that I ended up here, because I prayed a lot for the Lord to place me in a ministry that would be of great benefit to the Church, to people, and to my soul. Thus, from Sretensky Monastery in the center of Moscow, I wound up in the Northern Thebaid, which I’m very glad about. At the same time, there are plenty of opportunities for humility.
