Kremenets Theophany Convent

The community was founded in 1633 by the standard-bearer Danylo Malynovsky, whom some sources call Malynsky, and the cup-bearer Lavrentiy Drevynsky: at the request of these Orthodox noblemen the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth permitted a monastery of the Epiphany of the Lord, subject to the metropolitan of Kyiv, to be built on land they had bought in the centre of Kremenets, with a brotherhood, a school, a printing house and a hospital established at it^{1, 2, 3}. In 1636 Metropolitan Petro Mohyla of Kyiv declared the Kremenets community and its brotherhood subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople and his exarch in Ukraine, directing them to keep the statutes of the Kyiv Brotherhood Epiphany monastery, of the Kyiv brotherhood and of the Kyiv collegium³. At first it was a men's monastery and was called the Brotherhood monastery¹. Its printing house worked until 1650; among the books it issued are the "Grammar" of 1638, one of the first printed textbooks of Church Slavonic, and "The Council of Lutsk", with a reprint of Sylvester (Kosov)'s "On the Seven Sacraments"^{1, 3}.

About 1701, with the help of the Kremenets starosta Prince Janusz Wisniowiecki, the monastery passed to the Uniates; the printing house, the school and the hospital ceased to exist, and from 1725 the Basilians began to raise stone buildings here^{1, 2, 3}. In 1807 the buildings were given over to the Polish lyceum founded by Tadeusz Czacki, and the monks were moved to the Kremenets Reformed monastery^{1, 2}. In 1839 the monastery grounds were returned to the Orthodox, the church was made a parish church, and the library - one thousand six hundred and seven titles - was transferred by order of the Synod to the Volyn theological seminary¹. In 1865 the monastery was restored at the Epiphany church: at first it was attached to the Zahaitsi monastery of St John the Merciful, from 1873 to the Derman Holy Trinity monastery, and from 1906 it became independent, of the first class^{1, 2}.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the community had the Epiphany cathedral, built in 1760, the church of St Nicholas, arranged in 1841 on the first floor of the main monastic block, and a church of John the Baptist¹; above the St Nicholas church, from 1880 to 1912, there was a church in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "The Sorrowful", and the church of John the Baptist was arranged in 1910 in the monastery bell tower². There was also a brotherhood parish school of St Nicholas here¹.

From 1873 the monastery was the residence of the vicar of the Volyn eparchy, the bishop of Ostroh, moved here to have closer care of the Volyn theological seminary; in 1902 the seminary was moved to Zhytomyr and the title was changed to "of Kremenets"^{2, 3}. In 1919 Bishop Dionisiy (Valedinsky) of Kremenets founded a new Orthodox theological seminary at the monastery, in 1922 Kremenets became the cathedral city of an independent eparchy, and on 29 April 1923 the elevation of Archbishop Dionisiy to Metropolitan of Warsaw took place in the community³. From 1934 Archbishop Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of Kremenets lived here^{1, 3}. As of 1937 the monastery had a psalm-readers' school with a boarding house, a shelter for women and an eparchial candle factory, and thirteen monks lived in it^{2, 3}. In 1939, after Kremenets was joined to the USSR, the seminary was closed³; in 1943 Archbishop Oleksiy was buried in the monastery cemetery, and since 2006 his reliquary has stood in the monastery church of St Job of Pochaiv^{1, 3}.

In 1953 the community was reorganised as a women's monastery, the nuns of the St Nicholas monastery in the village of Obych in the Shumsk area being transferred here^{1, 2, 3}. In 1959 the monastery was closed - it numbered sixty-five sisters, who settled for the most part in the Korets Holy Trinity monastery^{1, 2}. The monastery's property, the library among it, was plundered, the Epiphany church was turned into a gymnasium and a hospital was placed in the residential block^{1, 2}, while its chief holy object, the wonder-working icon of the Mother of God, was saved and kept at the Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra^{1, 3}.

The monastery was restored in August 1990 with the blessing of Archbishop Lazar (Shvets) of Ternopil and Kremenets: four sisters came here from the Korets Holy Trinity monastery, led by Abbess Kheruvyma (Beneshchuk, died 1996), who restored the sacristy, the library and the gold-embroidery workshop^{1, 2}. On 26 August 1990 the wonder-working image was carried in procession from Pochaiv back to its former place, and that day entered history as the date of the beginning of the community's revival³; the procession from Pochaiv to Kremenets was led by the then superior of the Pochaiv Lavra, archimandrite Onufriy⁵. The following year the sisters returned and part of the premises was given back to the community^{2, 3}. Encyclopaedia articles of 2008 and 2014 record more than eighty nuns and novices living in the monastery^{1, 2}; among its holy objects they also name icons of the great martyrs Panteleimon and Barbara with particles of relics².

When the icon of the Mother of God "The Sorrowful", also called the Kremenets icon, came to the community is not known, but by the end of the nineteenth century there was already a church of the Sorrowful Mother of God in the monastery, and a description of the community from 1913 mentions "a greatly venerated icon of the Joy of All Who Sorrow"⁴. On the night of 6 June 2001 the image was stolen; later another venerated image of the Mother of God "The Sorrowful", a copy of the stolen icon, was brought to the monastery, and the vestment of the earlier one, which the thieves had not touched, fitted it exactly⁴. The day of the shrine's veneration is kept every autumn: on 6 November 2024 the Divine Liturgy in the community's cathedral church was led by Metropolitan Serhiy of Ternopil and Kremenets, and at the end of the service a procession was made around the monastery⁶.