Sts. Antony and Theodosius of the Caves' stauropegial male skete

The stauropegial male skete of Sts. Antony and Theodosius of the Caves stands in Svyatohirsk in the Donetsk region, above the identically named cave church at the foot of a chalk hill, east of the main buildings of the Sviatohirsk Dormition Lavra⁶. Until 1845 this underground church lay entirely forgotten and filled with earth, and before the monastery's closure under Catherine II only traditions about an ancient church in the hill survived at the monastery⁶.

The earliest testimonies about the church date to the early nineteenth century. Ivan Tykhotskyi, a member of the Kharkiv Historical-Philological Society, wrote in 1817 that near the monastery «the ground gave way, and at a depth of some four sazhens a stone church was revealed», which the Izium town governor managed to descend into but could make out nothing in the darkness⁶. The oral tradition about the underground church was recorded by parish priest Mykola Lashchenkov, who had served more than ten years at the then-closed Sviatohirsk monastery: he had heard of underground vaults with a brick ceiling some three sazhens deep, reached by a cave passage about five or six sazhens long⁶.

The source recounts that in 1844, soon after the monastery's revival, the brotherhood's confessor, hieromonk Feodosii, saw a strange light by night at the site of the ancient church, while two other priests, Marko and Mykola, perceived an extraordinary fragrance⁶. The collapse leading to the church was pointed out by the hundred-year-old elder Mafusail, who was living out his days on the Potomkin estate: by his account, the church had vanished underground long before the middle of the seventeenth century, most likely during the Tatar devastation of the region⁶. In 1846 the elder Mafusail was the first to be buried beside the newly consecrated underground church¹.

In his «Report to the Most Holy Synod», Archbishop Innokentii (Borysov) of Kharkiv wrote that the stone structure found in the hill had indeed once been a church, and that the brick and the masonry of its walls indicated an age of «three or four centuries» before his own time, that is, roughly the sixteenth or seventeenth century; the same cave, according to the elder who had pointed it out, had long been called the Varangian one⁶. The historian Andrii Muraviov, judging by the shape of the vaults, dated the church's construction to no later than the fifteenth or sixteenth century, while some modern researchers, on the evidence of the brick found there, date it to the seventeenth century⁶.

The Lavra's own literature also tells of the church's rediscovery: during the abbacy of archimandrites Arsenii and Herman - both likewise numbered among the council of venerable Sviatohirsk fathers - the underground church of Sts. Antony and Theodosius of the Caves was rediscovered, alongside the renewal of the St Nicholas church in the chalk caves and the building of the Dormition cathedral¹.

For the newly-found church the monk-steward Ioannykii personally hewed a stone altar table from unworked rock, and the church, according to tradition, was consecrated in honour of Antony and Theodosius because it was believed to have once already borne that name³. Archbishop Innokentii solemnly consecrated the restored church on 30 August 1846, and it was later extended with side vestibules, giving it the likeness of a cross⁶.

A cemetery soon formed beside the cave church. Opposite the entrance, Princess Tetiana Potomkina (born Golitsyna), owner of the Sviatohirsk estate, established a family crypt: here her brother-in-law Prince Borys Kurakin found rest (1850), followed by the princess's brothers Andrii (1861) and Mykola Golitsyn (1866) and the latter's wife, Princess Vira Golitsyna (1872)¹. Beside them the noble Ilovaiskyi family was buried - from Major-General Hryhorii Ilovaiskyi, interred in 1847, to the remains of members of the same family transferred in 1899 from the Zuivka settlement¹.

In the Soviet period the underground church's premises were turned into a vegetable store for a rest home, while an anti-religious museum operated in the chalk caves; according to the monastery's own chronicle, the vegetable store lasted until 1986².

In 1980 the Sloviano-Hirsk State Historical-Architectural Reserve was founded, and in 1984 the underground church was transferred onto its balance sheet, becoming the first site on the reserve's excursion route⁶. In 1985-1986 the church was repaired and an archaeological exhibition was arranged there, which opened to visitors in October 1986⁶. In 1992-1993 an archaeological expedition, commissioned by the reserve, studied the surface structures and crypts by the church's entrance, and in 1994 the crypts were restored⁶.

On 2 February 1994 the cave church held its first liturgy since the revival, led by the monastery's dean⁶. In October of the same year an iconostasis of cast iron and duralumin was installed in the church, to a design by A.B. Dashevskyi, with icons for it painted by the Donetsk artists H.V. Zhukov and V.V. Telichko⁶. On 7 December 1994 the remains of the Golitsyn princes were reburied in their family crypt⁶.

At the end of 1999, by order of the head of the regional state administration and a decision of the Sloviansk city council (No. 518 of 15.12.1999), the underground church, together with nine other architectural monuments belonging to the communal property of the city of Sloviansk, was transferred to the monastery for indefinite, rent-free use⁶. In 2000 the monastery bought from the sanatorium the so-called "Finnish house", built beside the church back in Soviet times, along with the adjoining land⁶.

On 8 September 2000, after the consecration of the Lavra's Dormition cathedral, the skete was visited by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine⁶.

After restoration work at the cave church, the skete was formally organised in 2001⁶. To the design of the monastery's namisnyk, a fence and a belfry in the seventeenth-century Ukrainian Baroque style were built around the skete, and on 21 August 2002 a dome and a cross were installed on the new belfry⁶.

On 23 May 2002, during restoration of the cave church's facade, the relics of two of its long-departed inhabitants were found - hieromonk Feodosii (†1850), buried to the right of the entrance, and the monastery's confessor, hieromonk Kypriian (†1874), buried to the left; both are numbered among the council of venerable Sviatohirsk fathers^{4, 5, 6}. Before their glorification the relics were kept in the same cave church, and were later moved to the Intercession church^{4, 5, 6}.