St. Simeon's Monastery

St. Simeon's Monastery is a house of the Khust eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the town of Vynohradiv in the Zakarpattya region; in its own list of monasteries the eparchy counts it among its men's houses⁴. The monastery's patron is St Simeon the Stylite of Antioch³.

The opening of the house was blessed by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at its session of 22 November 2000, held under the presidency of Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine. By Journal No. 20 of that session the Synod blessed the opening of the Holy Simeon Monastery for men in the town of Vynohradiv in the Zakarpattya region; the resolution was taken on the report of Bishop Ioann of Khust and Vynohradiv¹.

Of its own beginning the monastery tells little. According to the account on its official site, the house was founded in 2000, and in that same year the church of St Simeon the Stylite was laid².

The sources give the start of building differently. The regional online outlet Zakarpattya Online wrote that the building of the house in the name of St Simeon had been begun as early as 1999⁵; a local-history essay by Ivan Bilanchuk on the churches of Vynohradiv places the beginning of the building of the Holy Simeon Monastery for men in 2001⁶.

On 21 September 2012 Zakarpattya Online reported that the consecration of the house had taken place some days earlier, and that the date had not been chosen by chance - it fell on the commemoration of St Simeon the Stylite⁵.

At the consecration were the ruling Archbishop Mark of Khust and Vynohradiv and Bishop Yefrem of Berdiansk and Prymorsk, together with superiors of monasteries and clergy not only of the Vynohradiv district but of Zakarpattya as a whole⁵. The same outlet then called the house the first and, at that time, the only men's monastery of the Vynohradiv area⁵.

The sources diverge over the church as well. The house's own history dates the consecration of the church to 2012²; the local-history essay writes instead that a church of the Exaltation of the Cross was consecrated at the monastery in 2013, in which services are held daily⁶. Neither the date nor the dedication of the church is reconciled between the available sources.