Makaryev-Unzhensky Monastery: A Russian Orthodox Monastic Ensemble in Russia

Site at a Glance

Rating

★4.8

Popularity

Very Low

Country

Russia

Primary era

Early Modern

External website

Open ↗

Eras represented

Early Modern, Modern

Civilizations

Russian

Site type

Religious

Remains

Fortified Monastery

History

Makaryev-Unzhensky Monastery is a Russian Orthodox monastery in Russia, located in the town of Makaryev in Kostroma Oblast. Founded in 1439 by Macarius of Unzha and Zheltovodsky, an Orthodox monk and saint, it began as a medieval religious settlement on the high right bank of the Unzha River. The settlement that grew around it later developed into the town of Makaryev.

Foundation by Macarius

The monastery’s foundation is connected with the destruction of the Zheltovodsky Monastery by the Tatars. According to the life of Macarius, he chose a high site on the right bank of the Unzha with the permission of Khan Ulu-Mahmet. There he erected a cross, built huts, and dug a well whose water came to be regarded as healing. The new community was first known as the New Hermitage of Makarius, the Zheltovodsky Monastery.

Macarius died in 1444. A wooden Church of Macarius was subsequently erected over his grave, followed by a wooden Church of Saints Florus and Laurus. These early buildings established the principal religious associations of the monastery, which remained connected with the memory and veneration of its founder.

Expansion in the seventeenth century

In 1596, during the reign of Tsar Feodor Ivanovich, the monk-builder David Khvostov was appointed to the monastery. At his expense, the deteriorated wooden Church of Saints Florus and Laurus was replaced in 1601 by a stone church. A wooden bell tower with an octagonal form and a tent-shaped roof was also built. About twenty monks lived at the monastery at this time. In 1607, the community received fishing rights and associated lands on several rivers and lakes.

The monastery suffered major fires in 1650 and 1669. Earlier, in 1625, its third superior, Hegumen Zosima, had replaced the old Church of Macarius with a new ten-sided, five-domed building. It included chapels dedicated to the Annunciation and to Saints Boris and Gleb. A new wooden enclosure and a gate church dedicated to Saint Nicholas and the Solovki wonderworkers Zosima and Savvatiy were established during the same phase.

More extensive stone construction followed in the second half of the seventeenth century. The Trinity Cathedral was built between 1664 and 1670, the heated Church of Macarius between 1670 and 1674, and the Annunciation Church, with its refectory and bell tower, between 1677 and 1680. The Saint Nicholas Gate Church followed in 1682–1685, while the cell complex was built in 1687. The Churches of Macarius and Saint Nicholas were constructed by the Soligalich stonemasons Gavriil Antipiev and David Gavriilov.

Later construction and alteration

In 1732–1735, a stone Church of the Assumption with hospital cells was built on the site of wooden cells that had stood there until 1629. Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, the first ruler of the Romanov dynasty, reportedly stayed in those cells in 1619 or possibly 1620. He gave the monastery icons of the Hieromartyr Theodore Scribon, a Christian martyr from the clergy, and Michael of Maleon.

A stone enclosure with four towers was constructed in two stages between 1754 and 1764. During the nineteenth century, most of the monastery buildings underwent repeated repairs and alterations that did not substantially change their earlier appearance. The hospital-cell complex was altered more extensively. A brick building was added during the first quarter and middle of the century and later rebuilt; it housed the spiritual administration and a theological school. A porch was added to the refectory of the Church of Macarius between 1849 and 1854.

Abolition, restoration, and revival

The monastery was abolished in 1919, and its brotherhood was expelled. The Saint Nicholas Gate Church closed in 1926, and the remaining churches closed in December 1929. The relics of Macarius were removed and transferred to the regional museum. The former monastery was then used by a machine-tractor station and for grain storage. Most of the enclosure was dismantled during the 1930s, although a small section and two towers survived.

Restoration began in 1970 under the Kostroma Restoration Workshop and continued until the beginning of the 1990s under the direction of architects L. S. Vasilyev and A. P. Chernov. The work reconstructed part of the lost walls and restored the church buildings. On 16 July 1993, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church revived the monastery as a female monastery. The Kostroma Eparchy, the territorial administration of the Russian Orthodox Church broadly comparable to a diocese, received the entire ensemble in January 1994. Archbishop Alexander of Kostroma and Galich consecrated the Church of Macarius in August 1994 as the first revived church, and Macarius’s relics returned from a parish church in the town to the monastery in 1995.

The eastern section of the enclosure wall and its gates were reconstructed in 1999. Emergency work in 2001–2002 strengthened the foundations and walls of the Annunciation Church, although its bell tower could not be saved. Repairs and restoration continued on the cell buildings and the Churches of Macarius and the Assumption. The monastery became male again in 2016. The first monastic tonsures since its closure took place on 5 April 2019, when two candidates, Macarius and Tikhon, entered monastic life; another tonsure followed on 25 April 2021. Archimandrite Alexy Eliseev became abbot, a senior monastic title commonly held by the head of an important monastery, on 25 August 2020.

Makaryev-Unzhensky Monastery is an object of cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation of federal significance. Its principal religious relics are the relics of Macarius and the holy spring associated with him. A copy of the wonderworking Makaryev Icon of the Mother of God was lost after the monastery closed.

Remains

The monastery occupies a high bank of the Unzha and is separated from the town by a deep ravine. Its territory follows an irregular polygonal plan. A low wall with four towers encloses the complex, with the Holy Gates on the eastern side. The Trinity Cathedral stands at the centre, while the other principal buildings are arranged around the perimeter. A garden, including a vegetable garden and an orchard, lay behind the northern section of the enclosure.

Central and southern buildings

Trinity Cathedral

The five-domed Trinity Cathedral occupies the central part of the enclosure. Its northern and western porches are lowered, giving the building a distinct entrance arrangement within the central open space. The cathedral forms the architectural centre around which the perimeter buildings were organized.

Church of Macarius

The five-domed Church of Macarius stands against the southern wall. Its western side includes a large refectory, a communal dining building that could also serve a liturgical purpose, and a trapezoidal porch. The church belongs to the major stone-building phase of 1670–1674 and was consecrated as the first revived church in 1994 after restoration.

Annunciation complex

The southern complex also contains the single-domed Annunciation Church, its refectory, and a tent-roofed bell tower, a bell tower crowned by a pyramidal roof rather than a conventional dome. A two-storey building nearby contains a single-pillar kitchen chamber on the lower floor and a corresponding chamber above. The Annunciation Church was built between 1677 and 1680. Emergency work in 2001–2002 strengthened its foundations and walls, while its bell tower could not be preserved.

Northern and eastern buildings

Cell complex

An elongated two-storey cell complex runs along the northern wall. Its brotherhood and refectory buildings, together with the abbot’s cells and treasury chamber, are set at an obtuse angle to one another. The complex was built in 1687 and forms the principal residential group along the northern perimeter.

Church of the Assumption and hospital cells

The northwestern corner contains the small Church of the Assumption, an octagon-on-cube structure, meaning an octagonal upper section set over a lower square or rectangular volume. It is crowned by an onion dome on a solid octagonal drum. An eighteenth-century, single-storey block of hospital cells adjoins it on the west, together with a two-storey building added in the nineteenth century.

Saint Nicholas Gate Church

The single-domed Saint Nicholas Gate Church marks the principal eastern entrance. A long refectory extends westward from it in a transverse direction. Built between 1682 and 1685, the gate church formed part of the monastery’s eastern entrance arrangement and was closed in 1926.

Archaeological remains and enclosure

Archaeological reconnaissance in 1994 identified a settlement site dating from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Near the refectory, the monastery’s cultural layer contains burials, seventeenth-century wooden log structures, and many fragments of architectural tiles. Most of the tiles are associated with the period when intensive stone construction expanded during the second half of the seventeenth century.

The original enclosure was largely demolished in the 1930s. A small section and two towers survived, while part of the lost walling was later reconstructed. The eastern wall and its gates were rebuilt in 1999, restoring part of the monastery’s former boundary and entrance sequence.