St. Ambrose of Optina's Monastery

In the town of Tokmak in the Zaporizhzhya region, the men's monastery of Saint Ambrose of Optina arose on the site where, from 1898, a parish Holy Ascension church had stood - a century before the monastery itself².

That church was closed in 1954². Its revival began in 1989 through the efforts of archpriest Ioann Kovach, who at first planned to set up a shelter-almshouse there, and later a school of religious instruction². Over the following three years the restoration of the church and the fraternal building continued, and monks resettled into the newly-arranged cells from the Melitopol monastery of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified².

In 1993 priest Petro Boyarskyi served in that same Holy Ascension church². According to the monastery's own website, it was his tragic death that later became the occasion for the founding of a monastery on the site².

On 19 May 1998 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church resolved, by Journal No. 28, to bless the opening in the town of Tokmak of a men's monastery in honour of Saint Ambrose of Optina^{1, 2}.

The church in honour of Saint Ambrose of Optina within the monastery itself was also laid in 1998, and was completed and consecrated in 2005².

In 2004 the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra gave the monastery two icons - of Saint John the Infant and of Saint Ilya Muromets - together with particles of their relics². In July 2008 the monastery also received a particle of the relics of its heavenly patron, Saint Ambrose of Optina².