Transfiguration Convent

The convent in the village of Piskivka in the Kyiv region grew out of the buildings of a children's sanatorium: in 2003 the premises of the abolished and half-ruined sanatorium were handed over to the Kyiv Metropolia of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and it was decided at that time to found a monastic house here¹. The decision to open a convent was taken with the blessing of Metropolitan Volodymyr, and Archimandrite Filaret (Kucherov), who then headed the Synodal department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church "Mission of Social Aid to Children", was appointed spiritual father and builder of the house²; in the words of the house itself, this largely shaped the character of its social service¹.

The work began with the infrastructure: the utilities were restored, and the first Divine Liturgies were celebrated in a room fitted out for the purpose². During the repair of the buildings a domestic church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was arranged¹; once the wooden church stood, services in the domestic church came to be held mainly in winter².

On 14 September 2006 Archbishop Mytrofan, together with the clergy and the residents of the monastery, consecrated the laying of a wooden church in honour of the Chernihiv-Gethsemane icon of the Mother of God². The church was built from 2006 to 2009¹; in 2009 the building was completed, and on 19 August, the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated in the newly built church, which became the centre of the spiritual life of the house². The rite of consecration of the church was performed, with the blessing of Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine, by Bishop Filaret of Lviv and Halych, and on the following day he led the festal Divine Liturgy in that same church on the occasion of the patronal feast of the monastery; concelebrating with him were the dean of the house, the dean of the Solomianskyi district of the city of Kyiv, and the residents of the monastery and of the Makariv vicariate³.

Among its holy things the house names particles of the relics of saints and a particle of the Wood of the Honourable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord⁴; according to the archived version of the monastery's website, they may be venerated in the wooden church². The monastery has two patronal feasts - the Transfiguration of the Lord and the commemoration of the Chernihiv-Gethsemane icon of the Most Holy Mother of God⁵.

The social service laid down at the founding is carried on by the house in several nearby children's homes and boarding schools¹. Together with the charitable organisation "Revival and Spirituality of the Nation" the monastery helped to open a computer class in sanatorium boarding school No. 19 for children with scoliosis in Kyiv: computers and computer desks were provided, and cabinets for documents and medicines were fitted in some of the rooms⁶. The priests of the monastery travel to the special general-education boarding school in the village of Vyshevychi not for the first time: on 23 December 2015, for the day of Saint Nicholas, every child received a small icon of the saint, a bracelet with a cross and a parcel of sweets, and a priest held a spiritual conversation with the children⁷. In the same boarding school the clergy of the house, together with local priests, consecrated a chapel raised by the efforts of the teaching staff, the employees of the school and their benefactors; the consecration was performed on the day of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God⁸. On 15 January 2021 the monastery helped to replenish the material and technical resources of a general-education school in the village of Zabuiannia in the Makariv district².

Since the summer of 2012 a free Orthodox children's camp has been held on the grounds of the house; its daily order includes prayer, obediences, interactive games and talks with a priest⁹. The camp is called "Troitskyi": in its second year running it lasted from 2 to 9 August, and on the day of the commemoration of the Pochaiv icon of the Mother of God Bishop Varsonofiy of Borodianka came to the children, served a moleben with them and presented each of them with a commemorative church calendar¹⁰. For the fifth session, which ran from 30 July to 9 August, up to forty children gathered - almost twice as many as the year before; at the end of their stay the Divine Liturgy was sung by the sisters of the monastery and the children together, and for some of them it was their first communion¹¹.

The central church press also wrote about the house: at the end of July 2016 nine boys and girls aged from 7 to 12 - children with disabilities and children from low-income families - rested from 20 July for 10 days in a children's camp at a recreation base near the monastery, visited the house on an excursion and joined the Liturgy, at which they received communion¹².

The house also received pilgrims: on Saturday 5 October about a hundred participants of a cross procession stopped here, a procession which had set out from St Michael's church in the city of Kyiv with the blessing of Metropolitan Volodymyr and was making its way to the stauropegial convent of the Athonite icon of the Mother of God in the village of Chopovychi in the Zhytomyr region; the pilgrims prayed at the Divine Liturgy, some of them received communion, and afterwards they were given a hot meal¹³.

One further plan of the house remains at the design stage - a hospice for HIV-infected children². Its basis is to be the old abandoned blocks of the former Young Pioneer camp that survive on the monastery grounds: over several years the monastery has restored the roofs of these blocks, partly landscaped the adjoining grounds and built a stone wall round the whole perimeter⁹.