Okhtyrka Holy Trinity Monastery

The Okhtyrka Holy Trinity Monastery stands near the village of Chernechchyna in the Okhtyrka country, on the Okhtyrka hillfort - an oak-wooded outlier of the right bank of the Vorskla that rises 40 m above the floodplain¹. The top of the hillfort is an oval of 100 by 280 m; on the north it is protected by a defensive rampart, around which an archaeological cultural layer of the ninth to twelfth centuries has been found¹.

In the description given by Filaret (Humilevskyi, died 1866), Archbishop of Kharkiv, in his historical and statistical description of the Kharkiv eparchy of 1857, the Okhtyrka monastery held first place in Slobozhanshchyna after Sviatohirsk for the beauty of its situation; the hill on which it stood is round, like a tent, and covered with greenery, while at its foot the Vorskla winds and flows almost all the way around it, leaving a single isthmus for passage².

In 1641 the frontier town of Akhtyr, the predecessor of present-day Okhtyrka, was founded on this hillfort; its fortifications consisted of an earthen rampart and had six bastions, and in 1652 the town was destroyed¹.

In 1654 forty monks of the Lebedyn Holy Trinity monastery, who had come from the Right Bank under hegumen Ioannikiy, settled in the south-western part of the abandoned hillfort^{1, 3}. The house they founded was at first named for the Annunciation, and its wooden buildings - the Annunciation church, the refectory and the cells - together with its fortifications were raised between 1671 and 1676^{1, 3}. The first church was of timber, and at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Okhtyrka colonel Fedir Osypov built a masonry Annunciation church here³.

In the first quarter of the eighteenth century the ktitor of the monastery became the confessor of Tsar Peter I, the priest Tymofiy Nadarzhynskyi (second half of the seventeenth century - 1729)¹. At his expense the masonry Holy Trinity cathedral was built between 1724 and 1727, after which the monastery was renamed for the Holy Trinity and enclosed by a brick defensive wall^{1, 3}. Nadarzhynskyi himself took the great schema with the name Toviya in this house, died here and was buried in 1729³.

In 1741 a masonry defensive bell tower, a refectory with a church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and cells were built in the monastery¹. The monastery's own history names the son of Tymofiy Nadarzhynskyi, Osyp, as the builder of the refectory with its bell tower and of the hospital beside it, and gives the dedication of the hospital church with a variant reading - the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, or the Transfiguration of the Lord³.

The Holy Trinity cathedral was tripartite and three-domed: an octagonal nave, a tetragonal narthex and a hexagonal sanctuary, with the walls of the sanctuary and the narthex much lower than the tall octagon of the nave¹. After 1842 the tripartite core of the cathedral was built about with numerous porches and side altars¹.

In 1788, during the secularisation of monastic estates, the house was abolished, and its walls, refectory church and cell blocks were dismantled for brick¹. The Holy Trinity cathedral became the parish church of the neighbouring villages of Chernechchyna and Dobroslavivka¹. Despite the closure, the pilgrims of Okhtyrka came here every year for the patronal feast³.

In 1835 the wealthy inhabitants of Okhtyrka asked Meletiy (Leontovych, died 1840), Archbishop of Kharkiv, to revive the house, promising to provide for its upkeep³. After his death the petition to the Synod was renewed by his successor in the see of Kharkiv, Innokentiy (Borysov, died 1857), and in 1842 permission to restore the monastery was obtained^{1, 3}.

According to the testimony of Filaret, Archbishop of Kharkiv, on 15 January 1843 the hegumen and his hieromonks celebrated the divine service in the Holy Trinity church for the first time³. Apart from the church and the bell tower, the only thing standing on the site of the ancient monastery was a small decayed hut in which the church watchman lived; the superior was offered comfortable quarters beside the town cathedral for the winter, but he, and following his example the brethren, remained in the watchman's hut³. From materials prepared over the winter, two wooden houses were built in the spring: one on the hill for the brethren, one below the hill for pilgrims³.

On 2-3 July 1843 the solemn opening of the monastery took place: on the first day Archbishop Innokentiy celebrated the divine service in Okhtyrka, and on the second a cross procession went from the town to the house, after which the liturgy was served and the masonry building of the warm refectory church and cells was laid³. From then on a cross procession went every year from Okhtyrka to the monastery with the Okhtyrka icon of the Mother of God³.

The first superior of the revived house was the hegumen, and from 1859 archimandrite, Serhiy (Izmailov, died 1863)³. In 1844 the monastery was enclosed by a new wall with a gate, and a warm church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, one masonry and three wooden cell blocks were raised¹; the monastery's own history dates the wooden church of St Serhiy of Radonezh to 1845 and the church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God in the masonry brethren's block to 1850³. In the second half of the nineteenth century masonry buildings of a hospital and a guesthouse were put up below the hill¹.

In 1852 side altars of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God and of the icon of the Mother of God of All the Afflicted were arranged at the Holy Trinity church³. This icon, the venerated shrine of the house, was brought here, according to tradition, by a priest before the closure of the monastery³.

An entrance to caves was arranged on the slope of the monastery hill¹. The caves were dug in the body of the hill in imitation of the Kyiv Caves Lavra, were filled with stones during the desolation of the house, and under the superior Serhiy the way into the underground was cleared³.

Among the members of the community was the venerable martyr Aristarkh - in the world Oleksandr Sitalo, born in 1862, who at the age of twenty-nine became a member of the monastery and laboured here until his martyr's death⁴. In 1919 he was arrested by the Bolsheviks and, after torture, shot⁴.

The monastery was abolished a second time in the 1920s: a children's colony was housed here, later replaced by military barracks^{1, 3}. In the 1940s the cathedral and every building except the defensive bell tower were destroyed¹, and after the war almost everything that survived of the monastery buildings was taken apart for brick³. In the post-war decades an experimental testing ground of a defence enterprise operated on the monastery hill¹; from the 1970s antennas were tested here³.

Of the whole ensemble only the bell tower of 1741 survives, standing on the highest point of the hillfort¹. It was raised in red brick after the model of the bell tower of the Intercession cathedral in Kharkiv: a three-tier octagon crowned with a faceted tented roof with a lantern and an onion cupola, 22 m high overall¹.

The first tier is wider than those above it, has walls 170 cm thick and pronounced defensive features¹. In the right jamb of the doorway a passage is set within the thickness of the wall, with stairs to the second tier, which originally led out onto the fighting platform of the adjoining defensive wall¹. The second tier had loopholes, later cut wider and made over into rectangular windows¹.

The bell tower is a rare surviving example of a monastery bell tower of the defensive type of the first half of the eighteenth century, and an architectural monument of local significance under protection number 125-См^{1, 5}. The Okhtyrka hillfort itself is a composite monument of nature, archaeology and history¹. The Great Ukrainian Encyclopaedia calls the monastery one of the most notable architectural ensembles of Slobozhanshchyna¹.

A new revival of the house began in 2002^{1, 3}. A church was arranged on the first floor of the bell tower and consecrated in 2003, and a refectory was arranged in the building once put up for the testing ground³. In that same year of 2003 the tradition of the annual cross procession from Okhtyrka with a copy of the Okhtyrka icon of the Mother of God was renewed³.

On 9 March 2004 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, by journal No. 8, blessed the opening of the Holy Trinity Okhtyrka Monastery in the village of Chernechchyna, Okhtyrka district, Sumy region⁶.

Between 2004 and 2007 a two-storey brethren's block was built at the monastery, in 2007 a second attic storey was added to the guesthouse block and the clearing of the caves was begun, and in 2010 a second church was raised beside the bell tower³. Among the shrines of the house is a copy of the icon of the Mother of God Axion Estin⁷.

On 19 June 2014 the Holy Synod, by journal No. 9, blessed the changing of the name of the Holy Trinity Okhtyrka Monastery of the Sumy Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Okhtyrka Holy Trinity Monastery of the Sumy Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the adoption and registration of the house's statute in a new redaction⁸.

On 9 December 2020 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in answer to the reports of the ruling bishops of the Sumy and Oleksandriya eparchies, blessed the local veneration of the venerable martyr archimandrite Aristarkh (Sitalo) - one of five ascetics of piety who had laboured within these two eparchies^{9, 4}.

On 25 September 2021, in the Transfiguration cathedral of the city of Sumy, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church led the Divine Liturgy with the rite of glorification of the new saint: the secretary of the Holy Synod read out the synodal decision, the ruling bishop of the Sumy Eparchy read the life of the new martyr, after which the troparion, kontakion and megalynarion were sung to the saint and his icon was venerated⁴.