Transfiguration Monastery

The Transfiguration Monastery of the Dzhankoy Diocese stands in the settlement of Rozdolne on the Crimean peninsula, at the church of the Transfiguration of the Lord; the popular catalogue of Orthodox architecture dates the building of that church to between 1992 and 1995¹.

Archpriest Viktor Kulesh was rector of the Transfiguration church from 1991, and from 1995 he also bore the obedience of dean of the Rozdolne church district².

On 11 November 2008 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church resolved to form the Dzhankoy Diocese, separating it from the Simferopol Diocese; seven districts of Crimea were assigned to the new diocese, among them the Rozdolne district, and its ruling bishops were given the title of Dzhankoy and Rozdolne³.

In church reports of the late 2000s and the early 2010s the Transfiguration church at Rozdolne is called the cathedral of the Dzhankoy Diocese^{4, 2}.

On the patronal feast of 2009 a solemn service was celebrated in the cathedral, led by the acting secretary of the diocese, Abbot Feofan (Mykhailov); that day a wonderworking icon of Saint Seraphim of Sarov was in the church, and a procession went round the cathedral to the ringing of the bells⁴.

In February 2010 Bishop Alipii of Dzhankoy and Rozdolne held the first general assembly of the clergy of the diocese and announced at it the decree appointing the rector of the Transfiguration cathedral at Rozdolne, Archpriest Viktor Kulesh, confessor of the diocese^{5, 6}.

On 19 December 2010 Archpriest Viktor Kulesh brought greetings and gifts from the Dzhankoy Diocese to the children of the Chernyshevo children's home in the Rozdolne district⁷.

In the autumn of 2011 a parish school was opened at the Transfiguration cathedral: a moleben was served before the beginning of study, and at the first lesson the children were shown the structure of the church and the altar⁸.

Archpriest Viktor Kulesh died in 2012; the rite of priestly burial was performed on 14 December 2012, and he was buried at the cathedral².

On 28 July 2013, the day of the memory of Prince Volodymyr Equal-to-the-Apostles, after the Liturgy in the Transfiguration cathedral its parishioners together with the community of the Rozdolne church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" went out to a solemn moleben on the occasion of the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus, which took place on the central square of Rozdolne⁹.

On 1 December 2013 Bishop Alipii celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Transfiguration cathedral and ordained to the rank of deacon Mykhailo Bokov, a graduate of the Kaluga theological seminary¹⁰.

On 12 December 2013 Bishop Alipii again served the Liturgy in the cathedral, and at its conclusion he served a panikhida at the burial place of the former rector, Archpriest Viktor Kulesh².