Golosiivo Protection of the Mother of God Monastery

The community was founded in 1631 by St Petro (Mohyla), then archimandrite of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra: he took note of a secluded edge of Kyiv, Holosiievo, bought part of the forest with a small glade and built here a church in the name of the great martyr John of Suceava and several small cell-houses for the brethren, thereby beginning a skete of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra which came to be called Holosiivska Pustyn². Part of the great martyr's relics was brought from Moldova; a house for the metropolitan was put up at the same time and a garden was planted¹.

In the 1680s Archimandrite Varlaam Yasynsky built in the hermitage a church of Ss Barlaam and Josaphat of India, and in 1764 a wooden church of the icon of the Mother of God "The Life-Giving Spring" was raised¹. From 1786 the monastery was stauropegial and until 1793 was in the charge of the former archimandrite of the Lavra, Zosyma Valkevych; after the secularisation of church lands the hermitage declined and from 1800 worked only as the summer residence of the Kyiv metropolitans¹.

Two stone churches were built here by Metropolitan Filaret (Amfiteatrov): in 1846 the church of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God, to the design of the architect P. Sparro, with side altars of the great martyr John of Suceava and of the Three Hierarchs, and later the home church of St John the Much-Suffering of the Caves¹. In 1852, with the blessing of St Filaret, the community was named the Holy Protection hermitage, and the church of John of Suceava was renamed in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "The Life-Giving Spring"^{1, 2}. Besides the churches and the cells, Holosiivska Pustyn held a summer residence of the Kyiv metropolitans with a home church, a hotel and a farmstead of the Lavra². At the end of the nineteenth century the wooden churches were dismantled, and in 1910-1912 the main brick cross-shaped five-domed church of the Life-Giving Spring was raised to the design of the architect Ye. Yermakov^{1, 2}.

Among those who lived the ascetic life at Holosiivska Pustyn were St Petro (Mohyla) and St Filaret (Amfiteatrov), the venerable Parfenii of Kyiv and Oleksii of Holosiievo, and the fools for Christ Feofil (Horenkovsky) and Paisii (Yarotsky) - all of them glorified by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church among the locally venerated saints². Three of the community's monk-priests died as martyrs: the venerable martyrs Kasiian (Kuzyk), Ipolit (Semenov) and Filip (Bezuhly)².

At the beginning of the 1920s a model agricultural enterprise was set up on the monastery's territory, and in 1923 the monastic lands and farm were handed to the Agricultural Institute¹. Holosiivska Pustyn was closed in 1926, and in the Soviet period all its churches and buildings were destroyed except the house of the Kyiv metropolitans^{2, 3}. In the 1930s the church of the Life-Giving Spring was blown up; in the post-war years a four-form school, a pioneer camp and a tourist base worked on the site, and in the 1950s and 60s every structure except the metropolitans' house was dismantled¹. In the war years the second line of Kyiv's defence ran through the hermitage and fierce fighting took place here, yet not one shell fell on the monastic cemetery where St Oleksii of Holosiievo was buried².

In 1993 the community was reopened as a skete of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and in that same year, on 4 October by the new calendar, the relics of St Oleksii of Holosiievo were found and the home church of St John the Much-Suffering was opened². In 1996, by a decision of the Holy Synod, Holosiivska Pustyn became an independent monastery². The church of the Life-Giving Spring and the monastic cemetery were restored, a new church was built on the site of the former metropolitan house, and monastic and administrative blocks, a hotel and other buildings appeared², together with a bell tower, a cave church of St Theodosius of the Caves and a church of St Nicholas¹. Since 1999 the church of the Life-Giving Spring has been rebuilt in its original form: by its northern wall, inside the foundations, lies the grave of St Parfenii of Kyiv, and by the eastern foundations the grave of St Oleksii of Holosiievo¹. In 2003 the monastery was given a copy of the wonder-working icon "Gerontissa" from Athos¹. In June 2018 the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church led the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the hermitage's revival⁵.

The nun Alypiia (Avdieieva) was born on 16 March 1905, was tonsured a nun in the 1940s at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and in 1979 settled among the ruins of Holosiivska Pustyn, where a great many people came to her³. She departed to the Lord on 30 October 1988 and was buried at the Forest cemetery of Kyiv; on 18 May 2006 her body was reburied at the monastery, in the crypt beneath the church of the Life-Giving Spring³. On the thirtieth anniversary of her death, 30 October 2018, more than a hundred thousand Orthodox Christians came to the community to pray³. Since 2023 the Kyiv Theological Academy has worked on the monastery's territory, and a new Academic church in honour of St John of Damascus has been arranged here for it⁴.