Antoniyevo-Dymsky Monastery: An Orthodox Monastic Complex in Russia

History

Antoniyevo-Dymsky Monastery is an Orthodox monastery in Russia, near the settlement of Krasny Bronevik. Tradition places its foundation around 1242, in the lands of the Novgorod Republic, by Saint Anthony of Dymsk, a disciple of Saint Varlaam of Khutyn, although its first reliable mention dates from the fifteenth century. Today it belongs to the Tikhvin Diocese within the Saint Petersburg Metropolis of the Russian Orthodox Church and is protected as a regional cultural-heritage property.

Foundation traditions and early history

The monastery’s traditional foundation story links Anthony of Dymsk with Saint Varlaam of Khutyn, a prominent medieval Russian monastic founder associated with Khutyn Monastery near Novgorod. A later version of Anthony’s life says that Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky, a major ruler of medieval Rus, issued a charter establishing the monastery. This attribution remains uncertain because the earliest surviving version of Anthony’s life dates only from the late seventeenth century and may have transferred a charter belonging to another monastery.

Anthony was said to have died on 24 June 1273, although another tradition gives 1224. His body was placed near the choir in the church he had founded. In 1370, his relics were reportedly found incorrupt and displayed in a shrine in the same church. Tradition also says that the monastery was destroyed in 1409 during an invasion of the Novgorodian lands by Edigey, a Mongol-Tatar military leader of the Golden Horde. This episode is historically doubtful because Edigey did not reach the Novgorod region, and the account appears only in the later version of Anthony’s life.

According to the tradition, the monks concealed Anthony’s relics beneath a stone slab and submerged church vessels, bells, chains, and his iron hat in Dymskoye Lake. An annual procession to the lake was held on 24 July in the Old Style calendar to commemorate the event. The iron hat was later reportedly recovered from the water and, by the late nineteenth century, was kept with the relics beneath the cathedral.

Valaam monks and Swedish destruction

After Swedish forces destroyed Valaam Monastery in 1578, Valaam monks moved in 1585 to the monastery known as that of Anthony the Great on the Dym. They maintained Valaam’s communal monastic traditions there until transferring to Vasilyevsky Monastery on the Volkhov in 1618. A 1583 inventory and a 1592 charter issued by Varlaam, Metropolitan of Novgorod, provide early documentary evidence for the monastery and its communal rule. A communal rule required monks to share property and organize their life collectively.

Swedish forces led by Jacob De la Gardie devastated the monastery in 1611 after failing to capture Tikhvin Assumption Monastery. The unfortified community could not resist the attack. The monks dispersed into the surrounding forests, while the churches and cells were burned.

Rebuilding and imperial-era development

In 1626, with the blessing of Patriarch Filaret, Tsar Michael Fyodorovich ordered the monastery to be restored. During the reign of Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich, Abbot Filaret directed the construction of the first stone church in 1655. The monastery was damaged by fire again in 1687 and was rebuilt afterward. A charter dated 21 June 1692 placed it as an affiliated institution of the Sophia, or Novgorod, Archbishop’s House.

The monastery was dissolved in 1764 during the secularization of monastic lands, and its cathedral became a parish church. It was restored in 1794 after Ignatius, the archimandrite of Tikhvin Monastery, petitioned Gavriil, Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg and Novgorod. The restored community received a communal rule from the metropolitan on 11 October 1795, but remained a non-staff monastery without regular state funding. On 9 April 1799, Emperor Paul I donated 2,000 pine trees from the state treasury for repairs.

Thirty monks from Tikhvin Monastery had settled at Antoniyevo-Dymsky in 1794, and the community reached fifty-five residents by 1917. During the nineteenth century, most wooden structures were replaced by stone buildings. The monastery operated a parish school for children from nearby villages and held land that included a lake, arable fields, vegetable gardens, meadows, and woodland. Its four-day Anthony Fair, held for the feast of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June/7 July, also contributed to the community’s income.

The monastery was classified as a third-class institution, a lower category in the administrative hierarchy of monasteries in the Russian Empire. Its annual state allowance was 85 rubles 71 kopecks, while total yearly income did not exceed 110 rubles. In 1913, most of the brotherhood, apart from two or three people, was described as behaving badly. Many hieromonks had families, and local residents threatened to burn the monastery. The final abbot was Theoktist Kirillov.

Dissolution and twentieth-century destruction

The monastery was dissolved in 1919. Local tradition connects the settlement’s name, Krasny Bronevik, meaning “Red Armored Car,” with an armored vehicle allegedly brought to disperse the monks. In 1921, the former monastic buildings became a home for disabled and elderly people. A brick-production commune named Krasny Bronevik was established there in 1929. In practice, it dismantled the monastery’s walls and towers for the sale of bricks, while the cemetery was also destroyed.

The Trinity Cathedral continued to serve as a parish church until the end of the 1930s. The priest-monk Job Izmailov served there in early 1937 and died that year. After the Second World War, the surviving cell building and guesthouse housed a tractor-driver school and later a psychiatric hospital. The Boksitogorsk Alumina Combine subsequently received the remaining buildings. The former hospice became a factory sanatorium, while the main cathedral was used as a warehouse before being dismantled between 1956 and 1961.

Renewal of monastic life

By the beginning of the 1990s, the surviving complex included the skeleton of the four-tier cathedral bell tower, a two-story cell building from the 1830s, a two-story hospice from 1867, the parish-school building, and several wooden service structures. A four-meter wooden cross was erected beside the stone traditionally associated with Anthony’s prayer on Dymskoye, also called Holy, Lake, in 1994. The cross commemorated the 770th anniversary of Anthony’s death according to the 1224 tradition and the bicentenary of the monastery’s restoration in 1794.

On 30 October 1997, the monastery was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church and attached to Tikhvin Monastery as a skete, a smaller dependent monastic settlement. Reconstruction of the main cathedral began in 2000 and remains ongoing. In 2001, under the direction of Tikhvin Monastery’s abbot Euthymius Shashorin, Anthony’s relics were reportedly found for a second time. They were taken to Tikhvin Monastery and placed in its Assumption Cathedral, returning to Antoniyevo-Dymsky in 2008.

The monastery became independent on 6 October 2008, when Ignatius Buzin was appointed abbot. Adrian Dementyev has served as abbot since 14 April 2014. The renewed complex includes the restored and reconstructed religious buildings, while the monastery’s Saint Petersburg metochion, an affiliated urban establishment, is the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God.

Remains

Cathedral and bell tower

Trinity Cathedral

The main cathedral developed from a stone church built in 1655 and originally dedicated to the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Its chapels honored Saint Anthony the Great and Saint Nicholas. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the building was reconstructed as a two-story cathedral. The lower church contained the Kazan and Saint Anthony the Great chapels, while the upper church was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and included a chapel for Saint Anthony of Dymsk, consecrated in 1806.

The cathedral closed at the end of the 1930s and was later used as a warehouse. By the monastery’s reopening, only its foundations and bell tower remained. Reconstruction of the cathedral is ongoing, and the Kazan chapel has been fitted out for regular worship. Anthony’s relics were traditionally placed beneath a stone slab in the cathedral church, together with the iron hat associated with him.

Cathedral bell tower

The surviving bell tower is a four-tiered structure that formed part of the cathedral complex. Its restored tower received eight bells on 28 December 2010. The bell tower is one of the principal surviving elements of the pre-dissolution monastery.

Churches and lake-shore features

Church of Saint Varlaam of Khutyn

The Church of Saint Varlaam of Khutyn, also known as the Church of Anthony on the Waters, is a stone church attached to the refectory. It was created by converting a boiler-house building constructed in the 1960s and received a minor consecration in 2001.

Earlier wooden churches

The Church of Saint Anthony the Great was a wooden building with chapels dedicated to the Protection of the Mother of God and Saint Nicholas. It was probably erected in the mid-thirteenth century, rebuilt by 1582 at the latest, and finally burned by Swedish forces in 1611. The wooden Church of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist included a brotherhood refectory. Probably dating from the same early period, it was rebuilt by 1582, restored by the mid-eighteenth century, renovated in 1783 by Father Avraam Ksenifontov, and replaced by a new church in 1843. The later building does not survive.

Dymskoye Lake features

A wooden chapel dedicated to Saint Anthony was built beside Dymskoye Lake in the late 1990s and replaced by a stone chapel in 2011. The lakeshore was also improved and a bathing facility was constructed. The four-meter wooden cross erected in 1994 stands beside the stone traditionally associated with Anthony’s prayer.

Residential and service buildings

Brotherhood and abbot’s buildings

A one-story brotherhood building was constructed in 1840 under Abbot Hilarion. A two-story abbot’s building followed in 1846. It contained a brotherhood refectory, kitchen, and prosphora bakery, where the bread used in Orthodox Christian worship was prepared. A two-story pilgrim building was added in 1849, followed in 1850 by service buildings, icehouses, and a kvass brewery.

Cell and hospice buildings

The surviving cell building is a two-story structure dating from the 1830s. The two-story hospice building was constructed in 1867. Both buildings underwent later institutional reuse: the former hospice became a factory sanatorium, while the cell building was used first by a tractor-driver school and later as part of a psychiatric hospital.

Enclosure and entrance

A stone enclosure wall with four corner towers and Holy Gates, the monastery’s principal ceremonial entrance, was built in 1839 under Abbot Amphilochius. The wall and towers were later dismantled for brick during the industrial reuse of the site in 1929.

Saint Petersburg metochion

The monastery’s Saint Petersburg metochion is the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God, built in 1893 to a design by N. N. Nikonov for the Saint Petersburg Diocesan Brotherhood of the Mother of God. Its principal upper altar is dedicated to the Protection of the Mother of God, while the lower altar honors Saint Boniface the Martyr. Closed in 1936, the church became a monastery metochion on 19 June 2012, and its first service after reopening was held on 11 August 2012.