Holy Dormition Monastery

The Dormition Monastery for men stands in the village of Tyshkivska Sloboda in the Haisyn country. Historically it was known as the Hraniv monastery, although it does not stand in Hraniv: the house's own account places it eight kilometres from the castle of Hraniv¹, while a travel description puts it 10 km from the former town, beyond a small village of 55 inhabitants⁴. In older times this monastery was the centre of Orthodoxy of the Haisyn country¹.

Traditions survive about its beginning. By one of them, an Athonite monk named Onuphrius settled in the dense forest on the site of the future monastery: worn out by thirst, he dug a spring whose cool water restored strength and gave healing to all who came in prayer to the holy place, and the well was later consecrated in honour of St Onuphrius^{1, 4}. By another tradition, the country round Hraniv was settled by Cossacks who came to prince Chartoryiskyi asking him to grant them a place to build a monastery, on condition that they find the monks themselves¹. The inventory of 1909 tells the same story, but names the lord to whom the Cossacks came as prince Syniavskyi².

The documentary ground is thinner. From a document dated 1773 it is known that during the uprising of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi a monk of the Orthodox faith came here from Wallachia; others later joined him, and by common prayer and labour they built a church and a dwelling - on that ground the house is held to have been founded by Orthodox monks in 1650¹. The inventory of 1909 puts it more cautiously: when the monastery was founded is not exactly known for want of documentary evidence, and from the tradition it may be concluded that Orthodox monks founded it about the middle of the seventeenth century².

Then came the Union. The Uniates, having gathered various men, fell suddenly upon the Hraniv monastery, and of the whole brotherhood only three monks escaped; from 1711, by leave of the magnate Syniavskyi, the house became the Tyshkiv Transfiguration Basilian monastery¹. The inventory of 1909 adds that of the three who escaped, the superior Meletii took the documents issued by prince Syniavskyi and left for Kyiv, where he died². Podolia then had 18 Basilian monasteries, the Hraniv house among them; poor in endowment, it was placed in the second category, and in 1745, together with the Nemyriv house, it was attached to Sharhorod, though it existed as a separate department¹.

In 1764, by the order of the empress Catherine II, staff-lists were introduced for monasteries, and the Hraniv monastery was counted among the unstaffed: it lived one life with its parishioners, though it received no funding from the state treasury¹. In 1793 Podolia and the Bratslav country passed to imperial Russia¹, and on 1 September 1795 the monastery with all its grounds, ponds, mill, gardens, buildings and subject monks was handed over to princes Adam and Konstantyn Chartoryiskyi¹. On 7 September 1795 archpriest Hryhorii Pyrzhynskyi, in the presence of the Haisyn district overseer, joined the monastery together with its church to Orthodoxy¹. The six Basilians then living here refused the new confession and left the house, except for their head Valerii Chyhulevych and the elder Pamvon, and the dispute lasted until March 1796¹; the inventory of 1909 likewise dates the final passage under the eparchial authority to March 1796². The monks then lived in six cells and built themselves a new wooden church of the Transfiguration of the Lord with three domes¹.

The stone Dormition church was begun in 1860¹. The superior's reports to the Podolia consistory show it: a report of 22 September 1860 speaks of a resident of Haisyn, Shulimov son of Kapiliev Libman, who voluntarily agreed to carry to the Hraniv monastery, on his own transport, the materials needed in the quantity required for the building of the new stone church, and a report of 29 July 1860 entrusts the building to the eparchial architect N. Kulakovskyi¹. For the building 285 thousand bricks and hundreds of oak boards were prepared¹. The church was founded on 20 June 1862 by the blessing of the Podolia archbishop Irynarkh, and consecrated on 24 August 1867 by St Leontii¹.

The cathedral was built in the neo-Russian style, using the forms of seventeenth-century architecture, and both the church and its exterior murals are untypical of Ukrainian buildings of that time; inside, the stone church is painted as St Volodymyr's cathedral in Kyiv is¹. It is the exterior murals that make this church rare: Orthodox churches painted on the outside may be met in Moldova and Romania, but not in the Vinnytsia country, and they have made a colourful masterpiece out of a monastic cathedral plain in its eparchial style⁴.

In 1890 the monastery had a superior, five hieromonks, two hierodeacons, two monks and twenty-one novices¹. The house cared for more than pastoral work: in 1898 a separate building and a hall were put up for the school¹, and in the same year a brickworks was built².

By the ukase of the Holy Synod of 3 October 1908, number 12193, the unstaffed Hraniv Transfiguration monastery for men of the Haisyn uyezd was raised to the second class - without the maintenance from the treasury that belonged to second-class houses². The monastery's inventory for 1909 describes it in detail. The main brick five-domed church stood together with a four-tier bell tower carrying six bells, the largest weighing 191 poods². The warm brick Transfiguration church, with one altar and one dome, was founded on 15 April 1901 by the blessing of the Podolia bishop Khrystofor and consecrated on 29 September 1903 by the dean of monasteries, archimandrite Serhii². The superior's brick house of six rooms was built in 1878². The new large two-storey brick block, begun in 1901 and finished in 1906, had 48 brothers' cells, of which half were ready at that time². The grounds were enclosed by a brick wall raised through the efforts of a former superior, archimandrite Agafangel².

The house was also a school. A church-parish school had existed at the monastery since 1868, was housed in a monastery building and was maintained at the monastery's expense², and in 1909 a children's shelter was opened at the monastery, for which two rooms in the brothers' block were set aside and in which 10 boys had already been placed². In the same year, 1909, the monastery had: superior archimandrite 1, hieromonks 7, hierodeacons 3, monks 3, appointed novices 1 and unappointed novices 54².

One grave of the monastery cemetery survived - that of the forty-year-old novice Antonii (Levchenko), who was killed by insurgents and who, by the accounts of his contemporaries, had particular gifts of prophecy and healing¹. It lies on the grounds near the Dormition church¹.

On 6 January 1925, by the protocol of the resolution of the Presidium of the district executive committee on the liquidation of the Hraniv and Bershad monasteries, the house was closed¹. By folk tradition several monks of the Hraniv monastery founded a skete in the village of Stepashky in the Haisyn district¹.

The name of the hieromartyr Meletii is bound to this house. He was born in the Vinnytsia land, in the village of Cherepashyntsi of the Kalynivka uyezd, in the family of a devout peasant, Arefa, surnamed Zelenyi³. In 1906 he entered the Hraniv monastery, where he lived the monastic life for a quarter of a century³. Evicted from the house, he had to seek shelter and came to Uman, and from 1937 he lived there permanently³. On 16 June 1938 father Meletii was arrested, and on 30 August 1938 he was sentenced to death³; there is reason to hold that it happened in the Lukianivka prison in Kyiv³.

During the war a direct shell hit destroyed another of the house's churches¹. In the post-war years the accountant of the village council of Mytkiv raised his voice in defence of the ancient shrine, and through his persistence a memorial plate appeared on the church wall reading "Architectural monument of the Ukrainian SSR, Hraniv monastery, 1867. Protected by law"¹.

Only in the 1980s, with the return of father Antonii to the house, did the services in the church resume¹. From 2000 to 2004 only one monk served¹. On 23 August 2008 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, at the request of archbishop Ionafan of Tulchyn and Bratslav, blessed the revival of the house¹.

The house is alive. On 7 July 2020, the feast of the Nativity of the holy Forerunner, prophet and Baptist John, metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchyn and Bratslav performed a priestly ordination of a monk of the Tyshkiv Dormition house⁵. On 26 April 2022, the Monday of Bright Week, the Divine Liturgy was served in the Tyshkiv Dormition house⁶. At the same time the cathedral, with its rare exterior murals, is now falling into ruin and losing its grandeur⁴.