Dukonya Holy Trinity Monastery

Dukonya Holy Trinity Monastery of the Ivano-Frankivsk eparchy stands in the Ukrainian Carpathians, in the Verkhovyna district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, on the Velyka Dukonya upland pasture below the mountain of the same name, at about 1500 metres above sea level^{1, 3, 8}.

The nearest village is Probiynivka; both the monastery's own site and the eparchy describe the place of the house as remote from people and from civilisation^{1, 8}.

The history of the house, in the eparchy's words, runs to relatively few years; the monastery arose on the initiative of the rector of the church of the village of Probiynivka, archpriest Mykhailo Dutchak^{4, 8, 10}. When archbishop Mykolai (Hrokh) of Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia visited the church of Saint Demetrius in Probiynivka, father Mykhailo told the bishop of his intention to open a men's monastery in the mountains and invited him to inspect the chosen place².

By that time the priest had already leased a plot of land of 2 hectares and bought the wooden house standing on it, intending to make over all of it to the future monastery^{1, 2}. On 28 May 1999 the bishop climbed Mount Dukonya together with him, inspected the plot and consecrated the site for the monastery^{1, 2}.

The old cabin was taken apart, and from its timber, over four years, were built the Holy Trinity church, four cells, a refectory, a kitchen and a storeroom^{1, 2}.

On 17 December 2003 archbishop Mykolai came up Mount Dukonya with clergy and laity and consecrated the church and the monastery². At the end of the same month the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the opening of the new house²; the monastery's site dates that blessing to 29 December 2003 and names journal No. 30 of the Synod's session¹.

The eparchy's reports on the cross processions give the event differently: according to them, the Synod blessed the opening of the house in December 1999, the same year in which the site was consecrated^{4, 5, 8, 10}. The outline of the eparchy's history on the eparchy's own site, on the other hand, states that the Dukonya monastery has been operating since 2003¹¹.

As of 2018, in the list of monasteries that the Ivano-Frankivsk eparchy published on its own site, the Dukonya house was one of the three monasteries of the eparchy¹².

The patronal feast of the monastery is the Day of the Holy Trinity, and for it many pilgrims came to the house every year^{4, 8, 10}. They walked in procession from Ivano-Frankivsk - in 2016 from the cathedral of the Nativity of Christ⁵ - and also from Chernivtsi, Novohrad-Volynskyi and the surrounding villages; they climbed the Carpathian summits and reached the monastery for the festal vigil^{6, 8, 9}.

The eparchy reported such processions four years running, from 2016 to 2019^{5, 6, 7, 8, 9}, and as early as 2015 it wrote that numerous pilgrims of the eparchy walk up Mount Dukonya in procession⁴. In 2018 the procession set out from Ivano-Frankivsk on 25 May, and the festal Divine Liturgy at the house took place on 27 May, the Day of the Holy Trinity⁸.