Trinity Monastery (Chernihiv)

The Trinity Monastery (Ukrainian: Троїцько-Іллінський монастир, romanized: Troits’ko-Illins’kyi monastyr) is a former Orthodox monastery in the city of Chernihiv in northeastern Ukraine.

The Baroque katholikon dating from the 1680s

The original monastery of St. Elijah the Prophet on Boldina Hill seems to have been founded by Saint Anthony of Pechersk in the 11th century, but was abandoned after the Mongol invasion of 1239. One tiny church survives from that period.

The new Trinity monastery was founded nearby by Bishop Lazar Baranovych in 1649. In the neighbouring city of Novhorod-Siverskyi, Baranovych founded a printing press, which was rare at the time. He later transferred the printing press to the Trinity Monastery. The monastery's adjacent printing press was famed for their production of engravings, and its library — for containing more than 11,000 books.

The main church, or the katholikon, was constructed between 1679 and 1695 to designs by Johann Baptist Sauer, a master builder from Wilno. This church has seven pear-shaped cupolas. It is considered a high point of Ukrainian Baroque architecture (as practiced under the auspices of Hetman Ivan Mazepa).

After the monastery was closed in 1786, the Trinity cathedral was considerably rebuilt, losing four domes and most Baroque details. Its current appearance is the result of a 1980s reconstruction campaign. It has been the seat of a local bishopric since 1991.

External links

• Vlasenko, Petro. "Troitsko-Ilinskiy Monastyr, 11th-18th centuries". Monuments of architecture of the Ukrainian SSR (in Russian). p. 274. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
• Klymenko, Serhiy. "Troitsko-Illinskyi monastyr". Photo tour: Chernihiv; 2002, 2004, ahd 2006. Retrieved 2007-05-14.