Kasperivska Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The Convent of the Kasperivska Icon of the Mother of God stands in the settlement of Hruzko-Lomivka in the Makiivka district of the Donetsk region. The convent was established in 1996 on the grounds of a former psychiatric hospital, where a free-standing stone church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, the "Hodegetria", survived from the late nineteenth century, built in a pseudo-Byzantine style with a bell tower over the entrance¹. In 1999 a school for choir directors and psalm-readers was opened at the convent¹.

By 2003 the convent had two further churches - in honour of Saint John the Forerunner and the holy Apostle John the Theologian (a house church) - and was fitting out a church in honour of the Kasperivska Icon of the Mother of God, which was consecrated in 2004 in one of the buildings of the former hospital; it gained two side chapels, the left in honour of John the Forerunner and the right in honour of the holy martyr John the Warrior¹.

In 2008 a summer church in honour of Saint Innokenty of Kherson was fitted out at the convent - a large chapel-altar with an adjoining awning¹.

In 2006 the parish church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God in the town of Zhdanivka was transformed into a skete of the convent². The opening of the Holy Dormition skete was formally blessed by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at its session of 21 February 2012, by Journal No. 20, on the report of Metropolitan Ilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol⁴.

As of 2013 the convent's holy items included a copy of the Kasperivska Icon of the Mother of God, "of new writing"³.