Transfiguration Convent

The Transfiguration Convent of Stebliv, of the Cherkasy eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, stands in Stebliv on 8 Bereznia Street^{3, 5}. The house began from the town's old cemetery church: in the 1980s the priest appointed to it found there an ancient icon of the Mother of God and prayed before it for the strength and the means to build a large church¹.

The foundation of the new church was laid on 25 June 1989. That year the day fell on the memory of All Saints - the movable feast of the first Sunday after Trinity, on which the image of the Mother of God "Unbreakable Wall" is also honoured; the priest later learned that this was the very name of the icon he had found in the cemetery church¹.

The founder's own spiritual guide came for the laying of the foundation: Mitrofania (Bykova), a nun of the Diveyevo monastery, in the schema Manefa. As the house itself relates, she walked several times around the foundations of the church together with the priest's children and foretold that a monastery would stand there. In 1992 the new church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was consecrated, and two weeks before her death, on 5 July 2000, the schema-nun Manefa called the priest to her and blessed him to build the house¹.

The first sisters came here in March 2001; between May 2001 and November 2002 a residential block was raised beside the church, and on 16 October 2003 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the opening of the monastery¹. The schema-archdeacon of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Ilarion (Dziubanin), took part in the spiritual formation of the house and served for many years as its spiritual father; he died on 21 October 2007 and is buried in the monastery cemetery^{1, 7}. In 2010-2011 a pilgrims' hostel was built at the house, and on 5 March 2011 a spring was consecrated in honour of the holy prophet Nathan¹.

Journal no. 55 of the session of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of 16 July 2008 names the house as the Transfiguration Convent in the urban-type settlement of Stebliv, Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi district, Cherkasy eparchy⁴ - and the eparchy's own list of monasteries gives it under the same name and address⁵.

The monastic community here is growing. On 6 April 2021, on the eve of the Annunciation, the ruling bishop of the Cherkasy eparchy tonsured two novices of the house into the rank of inokinia and said then that thirty nuns were living in the monastery in common prayer and labour⁶. On 26 March 2025 the same bishop performed, in the house church of St Nicholas, the tonsure of six sisters into the ranks of inokinia and of the mantle, after which the clergy and the sisters walked in procession to the Transfiguration church, where the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was celebrated⁸. On 21 October 2023 a memorial Liturgy was served in the monastery for its spiritual father, with a memorial service at his grave⁷, and on 19 August 2024, on the patronal feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the fruits of the new harvest were blessed in the house after a festal procession⁹.

The feasts of the monastery are the Transfiguration of the Lord on 6 (19) August and the celebration in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Unbreakable Wall" on the memory of All Saints, the first Sunday after the day of the Holy Trinity².