St. Joseph's Convent

St. Joseph's Convent of the Kamyansk Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church stands on a rise near the village of Maryivka in the Dnipropetrivsk region, 45 km from Novomoskovsk and 25 km from the settlement of Mahdalynivka^{4, 2}.

According to the historical account the convent gives, the village of Maryivka was founded in the eighteenth century not far from the Kilchen river, and its first settlers were people fleeing the Polish gentry and the Tatars^{2, 4}. At the beginning of the nineteenth century these lands became the property of a retired colonel, Stefan Svintsitskyi, who had come here from Petersburg; he died soon afterwards, leaving about 1,200 desyatinas of land and an estate on the edge of the village to his wife Maria^{2, 4}.

The house began in 1873, when by a decree of the Synod, at the petition of Maria Svintsitska, the St. Joseph women's community with a school attached was established at the wooden Maryivka church of St. Joseph the Betrothed of 1870, and the Svintsitsky estate and lands were secured to the community^{5, 2}. It was that church that gave the community its name^{2, 4}. In the same year Maria, named as the community's foundress, was tonsured into the rassophore with the name Melania^{5, 2}.

In 1885 a second church, of wood, was built in the house in honour of the Protection of the Mother of God, and in the same year the community was turned into a supernumerary cenobitic monastery with a school attached to it^{5, 2}. The old St. Joseph church was faced in brick, cells were added to it, and it became the house chapel^{5, 2}. From 1886 the nun Melania was superior of the monastery and of its skete^{2, 4}.

In 1898 a three-altar brick summer cathedral of the Transfiguration was raised to the design of the architects F. Kulchytskyi and P. Paliievskyi; its side altars were consecrated in honour of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God and of St Nicholas^{5, 2}. The brick for the building was fired on the spot, by the river^{2, 4}.

The iconostasis and every icon in the cathedral were gilded, and the cathedral itself was crowned by a tall bell tower; the largest bell weighed 200 poods, was cast in Voronezh and was hauled to the monastery on four paired carts by eight pairs of oxen^{2, 4}. Services were celebrated in the cathedral daily from 23 May to 14 October, and it was closed for the winter so that swings of temperature would not destroy the interior finish and the icons^{5, 2}.

In 1906 the nun Melania was raised to the rank of hegumenia and awarded the Red Cross distinction of the second class^{5, 2}. By that time the monastery already had a stone refectory, prosphora bakery, bakehouse, guest block and cell blocks, and by 1913 there lived in them 235 sisters - the superior, 85 nuns, 76 rassophore novices and 73 novices⁵. The paths on the grounds were laid with oak boards, the walks were adorned with rose bushes and rare flowers, a large orchard stood beside the house, and peacocks paced gravely along the walks^{2, 4}.

In 1890, near Novomoskovsk on the bank of the Samarchyk river, a monastery skete in honour of the Joy of All Who Sorrow icon of the Mother of God was laid down, and in 1893 it was consecrated⁵. The skete had a wooden church and bell tower, premises for a girls' school, a hospital of 15 beds and an almshouse, and farm buildings; its holdings amounted to 172 desyatinas and 1,008 square sazhens of oak forest^{5, 2}.

In 1908 the monastery held 500 desyatinas of land, and by 1917 it held 1,200; its farm counted 150 pairs of oxen, 300 cows and many sheep, and fish were bred in two ponds^{5, 2}. After the death of hegumenia Melania the house was governed by the hegumenias Marionilla, Serafyma and Anhelina⁵.

In the spring of 1927 the monastery was closed and the sisters were driven out⁵. On the day of the leave-taking of Pascha the sisters walked into the refectory for the last time to the ringing of the bells, and the next day, after a Liturgy that also proved to be the last, a liquidation commission arrived and ordered them to leave the house that same day, allowing each to take a single bundle^{2, 4}. Some of the nuns settled at the Novomoskovsk skete, and the young novices went home to their families⁵. The sisters managed to save the specially venerated icon of the Mother of God "It Is Truly Meet", painted on Athos^{5, 2}.

An agricultural technical school was first housed in the monastery blocks, and later a vocational school^{5, 2}. At the end of 1927 the monastery lands were handed to a commune gathered from dispossessed peasants of the Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkiv regions, and in 1930 a collective farm was set up in the village^{5, 2}. In that same year of 1930 the Transfiguration cathedral was taken apart, and from its brick an incubator station and shops were built across the district; the brick was so strong that after the station closed the local people took it apart for their own needs^{5, 2}.

In 1941, during the occupation, a German staff headquarters and hospital were placed in the buildings of the skete, and in 1943 the skete burnt down in an air strike on that headquarters^{5, 2}. In that same year of 1943 the monastery revived: a church of St. Joseph the Betrothed was fitted out in the brick building of the former prosphora bakery, and the sisters who had survived and were living nearby returned to the ruins^{5, 2}. The house was headed by the elder sister Tamara, in monasticism Serhiia^{5, 2}. There were no bells - in their place the sisters hung artillery shell casings, of which many were left on the battlefields^{2, 4}.

In 1960 the house was abolished for good, and a tuberculosis dispensary and sewing workshops were placed in its buildings^{5, 2}. The monastery cemetery and the crypt of the foundress, hegumenia Melania, were desecrated, and a mill was built on the cathedral's foundation^{2, 4}. By tradition, when the monastery was being closed one of the sisters, blessed Marfa, chipped a piece of plaster from the church, wrapped it in cloth, tied it to her back and set off wandering⁵.

In 1993 a parish community was organised in Maryivka and registered in 1994^{5, 2}. Beside the ruined house a new church of St. Joseph the Betrothed was built, with a bell tower and outbuildings - a brick structure joining the church to its ancillary premises^{5, 1}. By a decision of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of 12 March 1998 the parish of the St. Joseph church was converted into a monastery⁵.

The rebuilding was led by hegumenia Maria (Poiaskova): with no training in architecture she, in the words of the house, "raised from the ashes" the walls of the sisters' block with its church and, terminally ill herself, inspired the builders by taking part in the work in person^{2, 4}. She governed the house for four years and died in 2002, in her 48th year of life; she is buried at the monastery^{2, 4, 5}. The rebuilding was continued by hegumenia Marharyta (Shevchenko), an architect by profession^{4, 5}.

The administrative standing of the house changed at the end of 2010: on 23 December the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, by Journal No. 48, separated a distinct Dniprodzerzhynsk diocese out of the Kryvyi Rih diocese and assigned the Mahdalyniv district to it, removing that district from the Dnipropetrovsk diocese⁶. On 20 July 2016, by Journal No. 26, the Synod blessed the changing of the diocese's name to Kamyansk - after the city of Dniprodzerzhynsk was renamed Kamyanske⁷.

The cathedral church of St. Joseph the Betrothed was built between 1998 and 2001⁵. The upper church of the house is dedicated to St. Joseph the Betrothed, and the lower one is consecrated in honour of St Nicholas of Myra^{9, 12}.

Among the holy things of the monastery are an icon of St. Joseph the Betrothed of the nineteenth century, surviving from the former house, the Kazan Kaplunivska icon of the Mother of God and an image of St Nicholas^{5, 3}; the last two have darkened noticeably with time³.

On the site of the ruined house of the nineteenth century a stone memorial cross was set up in 2013^{5, 8}. At Pascha 2016 a new bell, the gift of benefactors, was installed at the house, the belfry was moved from the old church to the entrance of the lower church, and when the bells had been consecrated the first Paschal peal rang out over Maryivka¹⁰.

On 22 and 23 September 2018 the house marked 145 years since its founding and 20 years since its most recent opening⁸. The celebration began with a moleben in the Holy Trinity cathedral of Dnipro before the icon of the Mother of God "It Is Truly Meet", which was once kept in this monastery, as the inscription on its reverse attests; after a copy had been consecrated the original, the house reports, was handed to the monastery and carried in procession to Maryivka⁸. The next day a Divine Liturgy was celebrated on the site of the ruined house, in the open air⁸.

On 29 April 2018 the ruling bishop of the Kamyansk diocese consecrated the iconostasis of the upper church of St. Joseph the Betrothed⁹. In January 2020, at the patronal feast, the community walked round the church of the house in procession for the first time - which became possible thanks to the work done on the monastery grounds¹¹.

The monastery keeps a farm, an orchard has been laid out and an apiary set up⁵; the orchard was replanted in 2006, and the apiary counted 12 hives⁴.