"Holy Sign" Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The convent in honour of the "Holy Sign" icon of the Mother of God stands in the village of Verbivske in the Dnipropetrovsk region and belongs to the Dnipropetrovsk eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church^{1, 5}.

The house was founded by Kateryna Pavlivna Vasylenko, the widow of a court councillor and a hereditary noblewoman. On her own family estate in the village of Hryhorivka, today Rubanivske, she built a church of the Intercession, and after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem she resolved to leave the world and to found a women's community on her own land⁴. In the late 1870s she applied to the Katerynoslav diocesan administration for leave to establish, at the khutir of Rozhulnyi in the Oleksandrivsk district, a women's community in the name of the "Holy Sign" icon of the Mother of God, to be called the Znamenska hermitage^{2, 3}.

The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine connects the founding of the hermitage with a report of Feodosii (Makarevskyi), Bishop of Katerynoslav and Taganrog, submitted in 1881 at the request and at the expense of Kateryna Vasylenko¹. The house's own site quotes the determination of the Holy Synod, taken upon an imperial decree of 9 May 1881: to establish at the khutir of Rozhulnyi a women's community in the name of the Sign of the Mother of God, called the Znamenska hermitage, with as many sisters as the community would be able to maintain at its own expense^{2, 3}.

The dates of the house's beginning do not agree across the available sources. The chronology the eparchy publishes breaks them into four: synodal permission to found the community in 1881, the start of building in 1901, the opening of the Znamenska hermitage in 1903, and the granting of the status of a coenobitic monastery in 1906⁵. The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine dates the founding of the hermitage to 1901 and the monastery status to 1907¹, while the house's own pages write that in 1903 it was registered as the Znamensky convent^{2, 3}.

In 1904 Kateryna Vasylenko was tonsured with the name Yelyzaveta. By the house's own account she was raised to the rank of abbess in that same year^{2, 3}; by the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine, in 1907, when the house received the status of a monastery¹.

For the building work a brickworks of its own was raised at the house, where the sisters fired the bricks themselves^{2, 3}. First came the winter church in honour of the "Holy Sign" icon with the dwelling blocks adjoining it, then the church of Saint Sophia of 1904, and after it the summer cathedral of the Transfiguration^{1, 2}. Part of the building materials was brought by Abbess Yelyzaveta from India and Egypt^{2, 3}.

The state of the community was recorded in the Handbook of the Katerynoslav Eparchy for 1908, which the house's site quotes: a stone church of Saint Sophia, built at the expense of Kateryna Vasylenko in 1904, with a cemetery inside the enclosure; landholdings of 500 desiatynas and a brickworks; a superior and treasurer, the mantle-nun Yelyzaveta, 77 years old, a graduate of the Institute for Noble Maidens in Odesa; nuns, one; novices, 150; and at the monastery the priest Stefan Sokolovskyi^{2, 3}.

The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine gives about 200 sisters as of 1908 and mentions that a shelter for girls, a parish school, a library and an art workshop were at work at the monastery¹.

The house's pages describe its economy at the beginning of the twentieth century: five communal blocks, a brickworks and a candle works, a windmill, icon-painting workshops, a bakery and an oil press, three ponds stocked with fish and a large orchard with trees brought from abroad^{2, 3}. The number of sisters differs across the house's own accounts: some pages give about 700 at the beginning of the twentieth century, another about 500^{2, 3, 4}. By the recollections of old inhabitants which the house's site relays, it was one of the richest in the south of Ukraine^{2, 3}.

In 1916 the building of the three-altar cathedral of the Transfiguration, with room for five thousand people, was completed and the cathedral was consecrated; after Easter Abbess Yelyzaveta died⁴. Her remains rest beneath the vaults of the church of the Intercession at Rubanivske, the very church she had established on her estate, raised in 1896 and revived in 1991, a monument of history and architecture of regional significance^{4, 10}.

The monastery survived the revolution of 1917, but in 1927 it was closed and the nuns were driven out; by the house's own account many of them met a martyr's death^{1, 4}. A gymnasium was fitted out in the warm monastery church, and a school was placed in the monastery blocks^{1, 2, 4}.

At the end of 1945 the summer cathedral was blown up^{1, 2, 4}. In the 1960s the state farm put up a new building for the school, and the monastery structures were taken apart by local people for building materials^{1, 2, 4}. By the end of the 1990s the house was a ruin overgrown with bushes, weeds and old trees^{2, 4}.

The restoration of the house began in 1997 with the blessing of Irenei, Archbishop of Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih^{1, 2}. By the house's own account the decision to open the Znamensky convent was taken on 15 April 1997 by a resolution of the Holy Synod, on the petition of Archbishop Irenei and with the blessing of Metropolitan Volodymyr⁴.

Abbess Georgia (Yemelianova) came to the village of Verbivske from the Holy Trinity convent of Derman in the Rivne region^{1, 4}. The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine and two pages of the house write that four sisters came with her, another page of the house that three did^{1, 2, 3, 4}. On 12 May 2005 the church in honour of the "Holy Sign" icon of the Mother of God, restored from ruins, was consecrated by Metropolitan Irenei^{4, 5}.

On 25 February 2012, in her 79th year, Abbess Georgia died, the first superior of the revived house. Her monastic life passed in monasteries of the Rivne, Kryvyi Rih and Dnipropetrovsk eparchies, and for the last fifteen years she headed this house⁸. She was buried in the monastery cemetery, opposite the altar end of the Znamensky church⁸; two days later the nun Manefa (Massyra) died and was buried in the same place⁹.

In 2013 Metropolitan Irenei consecrated at the house a new block with a summer refectory for pilgrims¹¹, in August 2014 another block, in which cells, a refectory and a kitchen were placed¹², and in October of the same year the new domes and dome crosses for the reconstructed church and blocks⁹.

Since October 2014 the house has been arranging the metochion of Saint Nicholas in Dnipro, on a homestead given by benefactors, where a church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker and a dwelling block were fitted out¹³. In March 2015 Metropolitan Irenei consecrated the dome and the dome cross for that church, and on the same day they were raised onto the reconstructed roof¹³; in December 2019 he consecrated the wall painting there¹⁴. According to the eparchy, by 2026 ten years had passed since the great consecration of the metochion's church of Saint Nicholas¹⁵.

In 2016 there were 15 sisters living at the house¹⁶. Its chief holy object is the "Holy Sign" icon of the Mother of God¹; on where that image came from the sources differ: the house's pages call it a gift of Archimandrite Damian, superior of the Vvedensky monastery in Kyiv^{2, 3}, while the eparchy writes that a copy of the icon appeared at the house directly after its founding and was returned to the sisters when the monastery was revived⁵.

In 2021 and in 2022 the eparchy marked two anniversaries at the house, 140 years since the founding and 25 years since the revival of monastic life^{6, 7}.