St. John of Sochava's Convent

The convent of the Great Martyr John of Sochava stands on a hill called Slatina, on the southern edge of the settlement of Krasnoyilsk in the Chernivtsi region, and belongs to the Chernivtsy and Bukovyna Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church^{6, 7}. The hill takes its name from the salt water of the wells there².

The sources give different dates for the beginning of the house. The convent's own site places its foundation on the edge of Krasnoyilsk in 1995 and its laying in 1996¹. A Romanian church newspaper's report, taken down on the spot from the founder's own account, says that the house has stood on Slatina since 1998 and that the building works began in 1999².

The land for the house - three hectares of arable field on the top of the hill, where wheat used to be sown - was granted by the local authorities, and the monastery later received a further 9.4 hectares². Holding the permission for the land, the founder prepared the building documentation from 1996, and the ministry for religious affairs in Kyiv gave leave to raise the church². The work itself was blessed by Onuphry, then Archbishop of Chernivtsi².

The monastic block was built first²; the convent's own site places its completion, together with the house-church, in 2000¹. In 2002 the house-church in the name of the Great Martyr John of Sochava was consecrated, and present at the consecration alongside Metropolitan Onuphry were Archbishop Serhii of Ternopil and Bishop Dorimedont of Edinets and Bricheni from the Republic of Moldova².

In that same year, 2002, the first sisters came to the house¹, and monastic and liturgical life began there from the consecration of the house-church².

The great church of the Transfiguration of the Lord is dated by the convent's own site to a laying in 2004¹, while the Romanian report places the start of the works in 2005². The church is 33 metres long and wide and 53 metres high, and all of its masonry was laid by hand, without cranes, right up to 2015².

The building took 600 tonnes of cement, 3,000 cubic metres of brick and 4,500 metres of sheet metal, besides iron, water and sand and the unpaid labour of people from the surrounding villages².

On 19 August 2015 the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, consecrated the convent's church of the Transfiguration and celebrated the Divine Liturgy in it, and at the end of the service he blessed the fruits and the monastery spring³.

Drinking water was short on the building site, because the water in the well in the monastery yard is salt². In 2016 it was piped from a spring two kilometres upstream, and in thanksgiving for this a chapel of the icon of the Mother of God "the Life-Giving Spring" was raised at the foot of the hill².

On 5 February 2024, the day of the commemoration of Saint Paulinus the Merciful, Bishop of Nola, Metropolitan Serhii of Ternopil and Kremenets consecrated the convent's lower chapel in the name of that saint⁵. He was joined in the service by hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the superior of the Romanian monastery of Putna, superiors of monasteries and clergy of the Chernivtsy and Bukovyna Diocese and of the Romanian Orthodox Church⁵.

The lower church is being painted in the Byzantine manner². At its entrance stand an icon of the Transfiguration of the Lord given by prosecutors from Kharkiv and an icon of the Great Martyr John of Sochava painted at the Romanian monastery of Putna². On either side of the approach to the house are the graves of three departed sisters².

The convent's liturgical day consists of the seven daily offices and the Liturgy². As a rule of its own the community reads the Jesus Prayer aloud every day, each sister in turn². The services are celebrated in two languages, Romanian and Church Slavonic, and the singing at the monastery is Byzantine, for which the faithful come even from Chernivtsi².

In 2022 eleven sisters lived in the house; they cook, tend the vegetable garden and gather herbs for natural preparations². In summer children come to the monastery - mostly from Krasnoyilsk, but from other villages as well - and stay there as at a camp, joining the monastic round to prayer².

The house keeps settled ties with monasteries on the far side of the border. On 19 August 2018, at the Transfiguration, Bishop Ioan of Soroca served here together with Metropolitan Meletii of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna, by the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir of Chisinau and All Moldova; the abbesses of this house and of three Romanian monasteries were at the festal Liturgy, and after the service the grapes were blessed⁸.

The patronal feasts of 2022, 2023 and 2025 were kept by the house with clergy, abbesses and nuns of the Romanian Orthodox Church taking part^{6, 4, 7}. In 2023 the feast was celebrated in the church of the Transfiguration, and at the end of the service grapes, apples and other fruits were blessed⁴.

On the eve of the feast of the Great Martyr John of Sochava the faithful of Bukovyna walk to the house in procession from Storozhynets - about thirty kilometres⁹.