Kulivtsi Holy Dormition Monastery

The oldest building of the house is the wooden church of the Dormition of the Mother of God on the steep bank of the Dnister in the south-eastern part of the village of Kulivtsi⁴. The monastery belongs to the Chernivtsi and Bukovyna eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and stands on Monastyrska Street¹⁰.

The church was raised at the end of the 18th century together with a two-tier bell tower; both are of wood, the church is strengthened with stone buttresses, the lower tier of the bell tower is plastered, and inside the church is painted in the baroque manner¹. The Encyclopaedia of Modern Ukraine dates the church to 1779 and calls it an architectural monument of national significance³; the council's own historical note gives the same date and calls this church the oldest architectural monument of the village⁵. A local tourist account names Teodor Kautish and Ioan Masenko as its donors⁴. It is a domeless church of three log frames on a stone foundation, in which the nave is wider than the sanctuary and the narthex, and the truncated pyramidal ceilings of the frames are hidden under a high pitched roof with a broad overhang carried on brackets of an unusual form^{3, 4}. The bell tower stands west of the church and is finished with a high tented roof⁴. Local tradition holds that a small skete once stood here^{1, 4}.

In 1961 the church was closed¹. In 1989 services resumed in it, and in 1991 a small monastic community formed at the church^{1, 4}; in 1992 a side-chapel of the holy prophet Elijah was added to it¹.

On 15 April 1997, by a decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the parish of the Dormition church of the village of Kulivtsi was turned into a monastery⁶; the solemn opening of the house took place on 30 April of the same year⁴.

After that the house was built up almost without a pause. In 1995 a residential block was raised with a house church of St Job of Pochaiv, enlarged in 1999, and a refectory with a church of St Kuksha of Odesa; in 1997-1998 a two-storey administrative block appeared, in 1997-1999 a bell tower and a chapel over the well, in 1999 a fraternal block, and in 1998 a hostel for pilgrims was arranged in the former village clubhouse¹. The Transfiguration church was built in 1998-2001 and consecrated in 2004, and its side-chapels of the Nativity of Christ and of St Basil the Great in 2006¹. In 2003-2007 the church of St Michael was raised¹, with which the Encyclopaedia of Modern Ukraine associates a crypt for the monks³; in 2006-2007 came the house church of the Praise of the Mother of God, and in 2005 the house church of St Barbara, consecrated in 2010¹. The church of Sts Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves was begun in 2008¹, and the Encyclopaedia of Modern Ukraine places its construction in 2011³.

The house receives primatial services. On 26 October 2017, the day of St Benjamin of the Caves, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church celebrated the Divine Liturgy here and, before it, the rite of consecration of new monastery churches in honour of the Great Martyr George and in honour of the Elders of Optina and St Tikhon; that year the monastery turned twenty⁶. On 26 October 2021 the Primate again led the liturgy in the house⁷, on 3 June 2024 the monastery was visited by the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America⁸, and on 27 October 2025 by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church⁹.

The feasts of the house repeat the dedications of its churches: the Dormition of the Mother of God on 15 (28) August, the Transfiguration of the Lord on 6 (19) August, the Praise of the Mother of God on the Saturday of the fifth week of Great Lent, the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael on 8 (21) November, the memory of the prophet Elijah on 20 July (2 August), of the Great Martyr Barbara on 4 (17) December, of St Job of Pochaiv on 6 (19) May, of St Kuksha of Odesa on 16 (29) September, and of Sts Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves².