St. Silvanus the Athonite's stauropegial male skete

The skete of Saint Silvanus the Athonite is a male house in the village of Zahreblya, Malyn district, in the Zhytomyr region^{1, 4}. The Athonite portal Russkiy Afon describes its site as wooded country between Zahreblya and the town of Chopovychi, not far from the Chopovychi railway station^{4, 5}.

The house grew up beside a spring long venerated by local people: by the same portal's account, the skete was founded by parishioners of the Kyiv church of Saint Michael, first Metropolitan of Kyiv, with the blessing of the Saint Panteleimon monastery on Mount Athos^{4, 5}. In 2011 a small wooden church of the Quick to Hear icon of the Mother of God was raised beside the spring with the blessing of the rector of that Kyiv church^{4, 5}. Later, with the blessing of the Athonite fathers, the skete itself began to be built here^{4, 5}.

Of the spring the portal repeats a local tradition: the clear water welled up where in the fourteenth century an Orthodox church stood which went into the ground together with its parishioners before a Tatar raid, and local people still say that on the great feasts a bell and church singing can be heard beside that rise^{4, 5}.

Officially the skete was opened by a decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: at the session of 5 January 2013, chaired by Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine, Journal No. 01 gave its blessing to open a skete of Saint Silvanus the Athonite in the village of Zahreblya¹. This was the first of that journal's two points - the second opened a skete of the Iberian icon of the Mother of God in the village of Sobolivka¹. The journal assigned both sketes to the stauropegial convent of the Athos icon of the Mother of God in the town of Chopovychi¹.

A year later the skete was named in civil papers too: according to a Zhytomyr publication, in December 2013 the convent applied to the Zhytomyr regional council for permission to draw up a land management project, and the draft decision published in January 2014 proposed reducing the forestry enterprises' holdings and allotting the house more than twenty hectares in all⁷. Of these, five hectares outside Zahreblya, in a compartment of the Barvinkivske forestry of the Malyn forestry enterprise, are given as the location of this skete in particular⁷.

On 19 June 2014 the Synod returned to the skete: by Journal No. 11, adopted under the chairmanship of the Locum Tenens of the Kyiv metropolitan see, Metropolitan Onufriy of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna, the skete was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the convent at Chopovychi and attached to the metochion of the Saint Panteleimon monastery on Mount Athos in the Kyiv eparchy³. The act itself calls the change a reorganisation of the skete³.

The Synod had opened that metochion, or rather revived it, in Kyiv two years earlier - by Journal No. 50 of 20 July 2012, at the church of Saint Michael, first Metropolitan of Kyiv². On the same day Journal No. 59 granted stauropegia to the convent at Chopovychi, and the reference note to that decision states that the church and nine buildings of that house were paid for and built by the religious community of that very Kyiv church of Saint Michael².

The account Russkiy Afon published in June 2014, reprinted the same month by the news agency UNIAN, finds the skete under construction: a wooden church was in use, where services were held regularly, and twelve brothers lived in the house, mostly parishioners of the Kyiv metochion^{4, 5}.

At the same time a large stone church of Saint Silvanus the Athonite was going up - its stone was carted from Mount Athos, from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and from the surviving remains of the walls of that Kyiv church of Saint Michael - together with a wooden church of the great martyr Panteleimon over the spring at the entrance to the skete^{4, 5}. A two-storey block with a refectory, cells for the brethren and pilgrims, and a library was by then nearly finished, and the building was done mostly by the brothers themselves^{4, 5}.

By the same account the typikon kept at the skete is the Athonite one, and the brethren read the Psalter continually^{4, 5}. Among the house's holy things are named portions of the relics of Saint Silvanus the Athonite and of other saints brought from Mount Athos, an old copy of the Quick to Hear icon of the Mother of God, and an icon of Saint Nicholas consecrated upon his relics at Bari^{4, 5}.

Russkiy Afon reported the skete's patronal feast separately: the festal service was led by the spiritual father of the Kyiv Athonite metochion, and with him served a priest of the stauropegial convent of the Athos icon of the Mother of God and the rector of the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Tulyntsi⁶. About a hundred pilgrims came to the feast from Kyiv, from the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions and from elsewhere, and after the liturgy a water-blessing service was held beside the spring⁶.