Odigitriyevskiy Zhenskiy Monastyr'

Monastery. Lost. (all monasteries in the catalog →) Founded: Between 1848 and 1861. Year of loss: approximately 1932 Address: Chelyabinsk Region, Chelyabinsk, (corner of Zwilling and Lenin Avenue) Coordinates: 55.160962, 61.403623 Directions: Chelyabinsk region, Chelyabinsk, Lenin Avenue, 52 and 54 The street where the monastery was located was called the Nativity of Christ in the middle of the 19th century, now it is Zwilling Street. Today it is the center of the city, that part of it, where the hotel "South Ural", the residence of the governor and the regional government and the residential house between them are located on the site of the destroyed churches and other monastic buildings. Even the foundation was not preserved from the magnificent temples, the spring key that had disappeared on the monastery’s territory, and the burial grounds of the first Mother Superior, including the founder of the community of Mother Agnia, who died 130 years ago, in 1872, disappeared here. It was the oldest monastery in the Orenburg diocese. The beginning of the Odigitriev Monastery in Chelyabinsk was set up by a community created at the initiative of Anna Polezhaeva (born in 1815 in the village of Varlamovo, Trinity County, died on September 14, 1872). Polezhaeva began her activities in organizing a convent in Chelyabinsk in 1848. On December 13, 1849, the Chelyabinsk City Council decided to allocate 5 acres of land for the future convent. The land was allocated on the right bank of the Miass River, near the east side of the fence of the country cemetery church. To secure the future monastery, the Orenburg provincial government in the spring of 1851 allocated 50 acres of Cossack lands, at the rate of 3 kopecks in silver per square sazhen. Initially, the sisters settled in a small house of 4 rooms, bought for 143 rubles. silver in the city center. They kept themselves: weaving, embroidering with silk, setting up icons with foil, cutting out paper flowers. The period of the formation of the community was difficult. The Alabu merchants, the Stakheyev brothers, who donated 2,800 rubles to the community, helped the sisters at that time. On February 23, 1854, according to the report of the Holy Synod, the women's community in Chelyabinsk was approved under the name of Odigitrievskaya - the Mother of God in the name of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God Odigitria (Travel Guide). On April 3, 1862 (according to other sources, in February 1861) the community received the status of a monastery, and its founder, who was tonsured under the name of Agnii, became the first prioress.