Ascension Convent

The Ascension Convent is a house of the Dnipropetrovsk eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the mining town of Ternivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. It grew out of a parish of the same dedication^{2, 5}, and the town itself is the centre of the Yuriivka deanery in the eparchy's church divisions⁶.

The parish's history begins in 1908, when a wooden church of the Ascension of the Lord was raised in Ternivka - built, as both the house's own site and the eparchial account state, without a single metal nail^{1, 2}. A father and his son built it: the elder was called Kyrylo and the younger Lonhyn, and the son was also the regent of the church choir^{1, 2}. Two church sources give the builders' surname differently - Hneshuiev on the house's own site and Hneushev in the eparchial account - and neither outranks the other^{1, 2}.

After the revolution the church was closed. Services resumed only in 1943; the name of the priest who served then has been preserved - Father Feodor - while of the second only the surname remains, Alekseiev. In 1955 Father Moisei Alekseiev was appointed rector².

In 1964 the church was closed a second time and turned into a state-farm warehouse; the building burned down in 1985^{1, 2, 5}.

The parish in Ternivka was registered anew in 1990, with the blessing of Bishop Hlib of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia and through the efforts of the dean of the Pavlohrad church district, Archpriest Valentyn Tseshkovskyi, and of Yevheniia Yakivna Herasymova. With the townspeople's voluntary donations a house was bought not far from the burnt church².

On 25 February 1991 Father Ioann Moroz was appointed rector of the restored Ascension parish². Parishioners, the town authorities, the heads of local enterprises and of the Pavlohradskyi state farm rebuilt the house into a church together; by Easter 1992 it had been converted, an iconostasis set up, the walls plastered and the grounds put in order^{1, 2, 3}.

On the feast of the Ascension of the Lord in 1992 the first hierarchical service was held in the church, celebrated by Bishop Hlib. In the same year a Sunday parish school began work at the church, and in 1993 a bell tower was added to it².

At the patronal feast of 1995 Archbishop Irenei of Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih led the Divine Liturgy, and before it performed the great consecration of the church and placed under the altar the relics of the hieromartyr Volodymyr, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych². The eparchy's calendar of patronal feasts dates the consecration of the restored church to the same year⁵.

On 9 November 1997 the parish council of the Ascension church petitioned the ruling bishop, Archbishop Irenei, to open a monastery at the church, for the strengthening of the spiritual life of the local people, for Christian preaching and for Orthodox education. The petition also listed the conditions the community held suitable for a house: a church on the edge of the town, a plot of 0.96 hectares, outbuildings and quarters for several people to live in².

On 12 March 1998 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the opening of the Holy Ascension Convent in Ternivka^{1, 2, 5}. The community received the certificate of registration of the house on 26 May of the same year, and Archbishop Irenei blessed the senior sister Vira and five sisters to begin monastic life there².

The eparchial account of 2008, signed by Deacon Heorhii Skubak, calls this house the youngest monastery of the Dnipropetrovsk eparchy². In the eparchy's calendar of patronal feasts it is the only monastery of the eparchy whose patronal feast falls on the Ascension of the Lord; on the same day seven more communities of the eparchy keep their patronal feast⁵.

In 2009 the main church of the house became the focus of the eparchy's celebration of the Ascension, joined by eight parishes, and the community then kept the 101st anniversary of the opening of the first wooden Ascension church⁴. As of 2011 the convent at the Ascension church was still being arranged⁶, and in 2015 nine sisters were living in it; in that same year the community marked the 25th anniversary of its revival, counting it from 1990³.