Derman Holy Trinity Convent

The Holy Trinity Convent of Derman stands in the village of Derman-2 in the Zdolbuniv district. The house has been known since the fifteenth century, and the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine calls it one of the leading centres of learning and culture in Ukraine in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries¹.

When the monastery was founded, and by whom, is not documented². The widespread attribution of its foundation to Prince Vasyl Fedorovych Krasny of Ostroh rests on a marginal note in the Derman commemoration book published in 1859; yet the commentators of that note date it to between 1636 and 1644 and show that the year of death entered under the name «Василий», 1608, points rather to Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Kostiantynovych of Ostroh, so the question remains open². The earliest documentary evidence of the house survives under the year 1499, when Prince Kostiantyn Ivanovych of Ostroh gave the monks a manuscript of the Teachings of St Callistus². His second gift, recorded in a Gospel book of 1507 - a gilded silver chalice, a paten and a cross with relics given «к Церкви Божей Св. Троицы, к монастырю общем к Дермани» - is the earliest documentary confirmation both of the house's dedication and of its cenobitic life².

The monastery's landholding is known from the end of the fifteenth century: a record of 1512 tells us that Semen Olizarovych, before his death, bequeathed the village of Bilashiv to the monks². Eighteenth-century summaries record that in 1542 the house held Bilashiv, Hlynske, Derman, Korshiv and Kunyn, and that in 1597 and 1602 Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn of Ostroh confirmed these estates to it together with half of Malyi Mizoch². With those villages the Derman house became one of the wealthiest in Volhynia². Even so, in 1571 it had only a small wooden Trinity church with a side chapel of St Demetrius².

In 1575 Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn of Ostroh removed the hegumen Mykhail (Dzhusa) and handed the house over «до рук Ивану Федоровичу» - to the pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov, whom the documents of the time call the monastery's «справця» and «державця»². The encyclopedia dates Fedorov's administration of the monastery to between 1575 and 1580¹.

In 1602 the patron of the house transferred it to the monks «під общеє житіє», that is, to cenobitic life, and at the same time opened a school there teaching Greek, Latin and Church Slavonic; Isakii Boryskovych became hegumen in the same year¹. At the turn of the century the Ostroh printing press was moved to Derman²: by Natalia Holovata's account it began work on 12 April 1603 under Demian Nalyvaiko, brother of Severyn Nalyvaiko, the leader of the Cossack and peasant uprising, and its first imprint was the «Лямент дому княжат Острозьких» for the funeral of Prince Oleksandr of Ostroh³. The translator Kyprian worked at the monastery, rendering there from Greek the collection of classical and Byzantine aphorisms «Пчола» (1599), the «Syntagmation on the Seven Holy Sacraments» of Gabriel Severus (1603) and the Homilies on the Gospel of John by St John Chrysostom (1605)¹. Among the deacons of Derman, Serhii Horin also names Hryhorii Otrepiev, who was in the house from the autumn of 1602 and left it in 1603². When the press returned to Ostroh, not earlier than 1605, printing at Derman ceased¹.

The superiors of the monastery included Archimandrite Hennadii (1591-1601), Isakii Boryskovych (1602-1605) and, from 1625, Meletii Smotrytsky¹. In 1627 the house passed under the control of the Uniate Basilian order¹. Meletii Smotrytsky died at Derman on 27 December 1633 and was buried in the monastery^{2, 3}. After his death the intellectual life of the house faded: its library, largely secular in content, was lost - part of it, by some accounts, burned by Smotrytsky himself before his death, and the rest, together with the monastery's documents, repeatedly plundered during Tatar raids on Volhynia, so that at the beginning of the eighteenth century those who catalogued the Derman archive complained that they could not find a single imprint of the monastery, and that only a few parishes still held an Oktoechos³.

In 1821 the imperial government took the monastery from the Basilians and gave it to Orthodox monks from Ostroh¹. In 1828 a fire broke out in the house and spread through all its buildings; the Trinity church suffered as well⁴. In 1829 Archimandrite Ierofei (Lobachevsky) was appointed superior of the Derman monastery, having spent the previous 15 years rebuilding the small unendowed monastery of St John the Almsgiver at Zahaitsi^{4, 5}.

Archimandrite Ierofei rebuilt the stone Trinity church in the form it keeps to this day⁴. Under an imperial decree of 1841 a plan was drawn up for restoring the tower and the belfry: the facade and the gates were restored, the tower was given a new roof with a dome, and the sacristy and the church plate were put in order afterwards⁴. A year after his appointment a school for church sextons opened at the monastery, and in 1833 a district and parish school where more than 200 pupils studied each year; in 1853 a three-storey house for the school's rector and teachers was built beyond the monastery wall⁴. In 1850 the bishop consecrated a chapel of St Innocent of Irkutsk, a fellow Volhynian⁴. He also installed an electric telegraph at the house, restored a small ancient church built by a prince of Ostroh, and enlarged the library with new editions in several languages⁴.

By a decree of 25 September 1844 Archimandrite Ierofei was raised to the rank of bishop with the title of Bishop of Ostroh and left as superior of the Derman monastery⁴; his consecration took place in May 1845⁵. The vicar bishop resided at Ostroh, and so came to Derman for the summer months⁴. Bishop Ierofei headed the house for 42 years and died on 17 April 1871 in his 84th year; he was buried in the crypt of the Trinity church⁴.

Until 1920 a church-teachers' school existed at the monastery; later a diocesan girls' school was opened here, afterwards reorganised into a Ukrainian private gymnasium which operated until the early 1930s¹. From the 1990s a women's monastery has again been active at Derman¹.

150 years after the death of Bishop Ierofei his relics were found incorrupt, and by a decision of the Holy Synod of 17 August 2021 Bishop Ierofei (Lobachevsky) was numbered among the saints of the Rivne diocese, his commemoration set on 30 April^{4, 5}. On 11 September 2022 the rite of glorification of the saint took place at the Holy Trinity Convent of Derman during the Divine Liturgy, led by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church⁵. On 13 September 2024 festal services were again held at the house on the day of the saint's glorification⁶.

The relics of St Ierofei rest in the Trinity church of the convent: in December 2023 it was reported that the clergy of the Zdolbuniv deanery had been serving a moleben with an akathist beside them every Friday for a second month⁷. The house also hosts the annual «Knowers of the Bible» and «Law of God» olympiads for the pupils of the Sunday schools of the Zdolbuniv deanery: on 26 December 2024, 43 pupils competed there and were given a meal and a tour of the monastery's holy places afterwards⁸, and on 26 December 2025 pupils of 21 Sunday schools of the Zdolbuniv area took part in the olympiads⁹.