"Kyiv-Bratsk" Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The convent in honour of the "Kyiv-Bratsk" Icon of the Mother of God stands in the village of Horenka in the Kyiv-Sviatoshyn district of the Kyiv region and belongs to the Kyiv eparchy. The house grew out of a parish of the same dedication, founded in the village in 2007^{2, 3}.

The dedication is explained by the older history of Horenka itself. According to the description by L. Pokhylevych quoted on the site of the Horenka village council, the village was otherwise called Papirnia, the Paper Mill: in the eighteenth century a paper mill of the Kyiv Academy of the Bratsky monastery worked on its lands, towards Mostyshche⁴.

It was the parish's founder who came upon that history. In 1999 hegumen Akhylla (Shakhtaryn), until then serving at the Presentation church in Kyiv-Podil, settled in Horenka, having bought a house there, and, taking an interest in the village's past, learned that from ancient times it had belonged to the Kyiv-Bratsky monastery and had been called Papirnia, after the paper mill that made paper for the needs of that monastery and of the Theological Academy².

In August 2005, by decree of Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine, Father Akhylla was appointed a staff priest of the church of Saint Seraphim in Pushcha-Vodytsia, where most of the inhabitants of Horenka were cared for spiritually. This made it possible to study the village's history in more detail, and the rector came to the conclusion that Horenka should have a church of its own².

In the spring of 2007, with the blessing of Metropolitan Volodymyr, a parish was founded and registered in the village^{2, 3}. In choosing a name for the parish and for the future church, they settled on the wonderworking "Kyiv-Bratsk" Icon of the Mother of God: before the revolution this relic had been kept in the Kyiv-Bratsky monastery, with which the village had a historical and spiritual connection, and, as the deanery sets it out, also because in all the time the icon had existed not one church had been consecrated in its honour².

At the same time the rector acquired a plot of land for the building⁶. On 17 October 2007, by decree of Metropolitan Volodymyr, hegumen Akhylla was appointed rector of the Horenka parish^{2, 3}. Until there was a church, the community prayed in his house chapel in honour of the Great Martyr Paraskeva, arranged with the Metropolitan's blessing².

For the future church a temple icon of the "Kyiv-Bratsk" Mother of God was painted, following the historical description and the surviving copies³.

On 15 March 2008 the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church consecrated the site for the building of the church⁶. The church itself was put up quickly: in the words of the parish sacristan, it was built in a little over a month, in forty days in all, and the whole community helped in the building².

On 7 November 2008 the new church in Horenka was consecrated; the consecration was performed in person by Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine, who addressed the parishioners after the liturgy^{2, 6}. The church is a wooden one of the usual kind, with room for 150 faithful⁶.

The design of the church was supplemented by the rector himself: a choir gallery was arranged in it, of the sort such small churches do not usually have². On the outside the church is adorned by a clock to the right of the entrance².

In the newly consecrated church archimandrite Akhylla was awarded an order of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and a certificate of the Holy Synod, for his services in church building and on the occasion of the celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus; he received the awards from the hands of Metropolitan Volodymyr².

Through the rector's efforts a Sunday school for children and adults began work in Horenka, in which the catechism was studied and readers were trained²; as of 2010 a building for it was going up beside the church⁶. A Sunday school for the youngest children works at the house as well⁵.

The "Kyiv-Bratsk" icon itself, to which the monastery is dedicated, by church tradition appeared miraculously in 1654 in the church of Saints Borys and Hlib in Vyshhorod, and in 1662, when the town was devastated, the image was carried out of the church and set upon the Dnipro; the river brought it ashore at Podil in Kyiv, whence the relic was transferred to the Bratsky monastery^{2, 3}.

After the Kyiv-Bratsky monastery and the Kyiv Theological Academy were officially closed by the Soviet authorities in 1919 the icon disappeared without trace, and in July 2009 it was found in the reserve store of the National Art Museum of Ukraine³.

On 15 March 2013 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, by journal No. 31, blessed the opening of the convent in honour of the "Kyiv-Bratsk" Icon of the Mother of God of the Kyiv eparchy at the parish of the same dedication in the village of Horenka, and the registration of the house's statute¹. The site of the Horenka village council dates the opening of the monastery to the same day and notes that the parish remained at the house⁵.