Theophany Convent

The Epiphany Convent of the Oleksandriia Eparchy stands in the village of Dykivka, thirty kilometres from Oleksandriia, and the church here is far older than the house itself: the church was built back in the eighteenth century, while the monastery was opened in 1996¹.

The village was laid out in the first half of the eighteenth century on the site of the winter camp of a Cossack nicknamed Dykyi, who served in the Myrhorod regiment; the first written mention of Dykivka is dated 1742^{1, 2}.

In 1752 the Empress Elizabeth granted colonel Ivan Khorvat a charter for the creation of New Serbia, and the 18th company of the New Serbian mounted hussar regiment was quartered in Dykivka³. In the second half of the same century Serbian soldiers under that same colonel built a stone church in the village in honour of the Epiphany of the Lord¹; the house's own site assigns the church to the end of the eighteenth century². Its shape was unusual: at its base lay an eight-pointed cross with a straight lower crossbar¹.

Local tradition holds that the church was raised for Archimandrite Sofronii and eleven monks who had come from Serbia. But Dykivka lay on a busy road between Yelysavethrad and Kremenchuk and was unsuited to a secluded monastic life, so the Serbs settled in the neighbouring stretch of forest, where monastery buildings were put up for them; those buildings have not survived¹.

In the Soviet years the church was closed. At first grain was kept in it, and then a village hospital was fitted out there, with wards for patients and doctors' offices¹. It was precisely that relatively careful use that preserved the building¹.

The idea of giving the church back its purpose came from the priest of the neighbouring village of Dmytrivka, who also had spiritual care of Dykivka: driving past the old church fitted out as a hospital, he could see that the building had not been destroyed, only converted. He turned to Vasylii (Vasyltsev), Archbishop of Kirovohrad and Oleksandriia, and the archbishop, having inspected the church, proposed a women's monastery in particular, because the eparchy had none at that time¹.

The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, presided over by His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr, took the decision to open the Epiphany Convent on 27 July 1996¹.

It had to begin almost from nothing: the hospital was still working on the grounds of the future monastery, and the church itself held hospital offices and wards. After the medical institution was moved to Znamianka the equipment was taken away, leaving bare walls¹. The first helper was a young woman, Oksana, later the nun Nadiia; the two of them began to make the house habitable, having at first a single small room converted into a cell, and repairing it room by room with their own hands¹.

In the early years the sisters themselves built and restored the church, fitted out a refectory, put up a fence and worked the land; a subsidiary farm with land and livestock appeared at the monastery, and for want of machinery the women often gathered the harvest by hand, mowed hay and laid in fodder for the animals¹. Later other things were built: in 2004 a hostel for pilgrims was fitted out, and over 2006-2010 a bell tower was raised².

Today the house receives pilgrims continuously, gives them rest, feeds them and draws them into the services, while the sisters take part in charitable and community events, cook for feast days and support the people of the surrounding villages¹. As a particular event of the monastery's recent history the eparchy names the glorification of the locally venerated saint Ioann Pokhidchenko, whose relics now rest in the Epiphany church¹.

The house keeps its patronal feast at the Epiphany, on 6 (19) January⁷. Its community is alive: on 10 April 2025 the ruling bishop tonsured two nuns into the great schema in the Epiphany church, another into the lesser schema, and a novice into the rank of a monastic⁴. On 9 August 2026, the day of the Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, two hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church served the festal Liturgy at the monastery, and the evening before a solemn all-night vigil was served here^{5, 6}; that year the house was marking thirty years since its founding⁶.