St. Anne's Convent

The convent dedicated to St Anna the Righteous stands in the small town of Vashkivtsi, Vyzhnytsia district, Chernivtsi region^{1, 4}. The town's name comes from the personal name Vasko - a parallel form, "Vaskivtsi", was still in use in the nineteenth century - and the first written mention of the town is dated 1431².

South of the town rises the picturesque Anna's Hill². According to the tradition the monastery itself relates, a girl named Anna once hid there from the Tatars². His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy, speaking at the monastery in 2019, gave the tradition differently: "There is a tradition that the Turks once pursued a young woman, and the hill parted, and the girl was saved"⁴.

There is also an oral tradition that a convent stood on the hill in the past, though the only thing documented is a church, lost in the twentieth century².

Popular veneration of the hill did not stop even when going to church was forbidden. In the words of the Primate, "when they forbade going to church, people put up crosses and chapels on this hill. In the morning they would be taken down, in the evening people would put them up again. It was the unending struggle of the godless authorities against believing people"⁴.

It was precisely because of this popular veneration of Anna's Hill that, as the monastery relates, the convent of St Anna the Righteous was founded here in 1993².

The following year the opening of the house was blessed by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. At its session of 29 July 1994 the Synod heard "the report of His Grace Onufriy, Archbishop of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna, on the opening of a convent in honour of St Anna the Righteous on Anninska Hill in the town of Vashkivtsi, Vyzhnytsia deanery, Chernivtsi eparchy" and resolved "to bless the opening of the convent of St Anna the Righteous on Anninska Hill in the village of Vashkivtsi, Vyzhnytsia deanery, Chernivtsi eparchy"¹.

Building began at once. In 1995 the lower chapel of the Holy Martyrs Maccabees in the church of St Anna was completed².

As of 1996 the house also had cell blocks, a temporary belfry, a summer house for pilgrims, an old stone cross set up beside the church of St Anna, and a well and a chapel built at the foot of the hill². In the years that followed several more blocks were built, and in 2002 a spring of mineral water was found on the hill².

The house keeps the memory of St Anna the Righteous, mother of the Most Holy Theotokos, on 25 July (7 August), 9 (22) September and 9 (22) December, and the memory of the Holy Martyrs Maccabees on 1 (14) August³.

The Maccabees feast is the principal one here. On 14 August 2019, the feast of the Procession of the Precious Wood of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord and the day of the memory of the Holy Martyrs Maccabees, the Divine Liturgy in the house was celebrated by His Beatitude Onufriy, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine⁴. The lower church of the monastery's central cathedral is consecrated in honour of the Holy Martyrs Maccabees⁴. Among those taking part in the festal Liturgy were the faithful who had come in a cross procession over 50 kilometres from the village of Roztoky, Putyla district⁴.

Of the custom of that day the Primate said: "Today is a great day for this place - for Anna's Hill. Today is the first day of the Dormition fast, and by tradition many pilgrims gather here on this day to pray to God and to ask a blessing for the fast and for their whole life. Pilgrims come here in an extraordinary way - they simply go on their knees, they crawl from the bottom to the top of the hill"⁴. After the dismissal the blessing of honey and herbs was performed⁴.