Zhytomyr St. Anastasia of Rome's stauropegial Convent

The community from which the house grew formed around the schema-nun Rafaila (Chernetska): confined to a wheelchair from childhood, she devoted herself to prayer and took monastic vows, while the spiritual sisters who cared for her at home formed a monastic community¹. The monastery was founded by a decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of 30 March 1999 on the grounds of a former tuberculosis sanatorium, whose buildings were handed over to that community¹. Schema-nun Rafaila was the first superior of the house and reposed in 2005¹.

Through the labours of the sisters the buildings of the former sanatorium took on the features of church architecture, and new structures appeared as well¹. In 2000 a church of St Sergius of Radonezh was arranged in one of the old blocks, and in 2002 a bell tower was consecrated on the monastery grounds and the cathedral of the venerable martyr Anastasia of Rome was laid down, with a lower side chapel of St Seraphim of Sarov; that chapel was consecrated in 2010¹. In 2012 the exterior finishing of the cathedral was completed, and in the same year a monument to St Seraphim of Sarov was set up in the monastery¹.

On 10 February 2011 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, having heard the information of the Primate, resolved to grant the women's monastery in honour of the holy venerable martyr Anastasia of Rome of the city of Zhytomyr the status of a stauropegion². The monastery's own history page records the granting of the stauropegion as well¹.

The house keeps its patronal days by its own calendar: the memory of the venerable martyr Anastasia of Rome on 29 October (11 November), of St Sergius of Radonezh on 5 (18) July and 25 September (8 October), and of St Seraphim of Sarov on 2 (15) January and 19 July (1 August)³. The monastery's own history page calls the venerable martyr Anastasia of Rome the patroness of the city of Zhytomyr¹.