Ascension Convent

The convent stands two kilometres west of the village, in the Zaberekh, or Oseriak, tract¹. Its prehistory began in the village of Dubove, where after the First World War lived a brother and sister, Ivan and Maria Rybar. In 1920 Dubove was visited by the missionary preaching of St Alexis the confessor (Kabaliuk), who was then labouring to restore in Zakarpattia the Orthodox faith displaced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries after the Union of Uzhhorod of 1646. Meeting the ascetic, Maria told him of her wish to become a nun, and he found her work in the boarding house for Orthodox gymnasium pupils that he was then setting up at Khust².

In 1924 Maria returned to Dubove and told the priest serving there, Ioann Babych, a native of Chumalevo, that she wished to take monastic vows and to establish a monastery at Dubove. The priest answered that a quiet place for a house was hard to find at Dubove, and advised her to go to Chumalevo, where he himself was ready to give his own land for a monastery. In 1925 Maria came to Chumalevo and asked the villagers to support her undertaking. They showed her the Oseriak tract: some thirty years earlier a local holy fool, Heorhii Karol, had lived below the hill there and foretold that a monastery would appear on it. The peasants gave up that land in exchange for Father Ioann's plot, and in that same year of 1925 the building of the house began².

In 1926 Maria's brother became Hieromonk Ilarion and the monastery's confessor. Maria herself received the riasophore tonsure in 1933, in 1938 the tonsure into the mantle and the rank of hegumena, in 1968 retired, in 1978 received the schema and reposed in her eightieth year².

In 1925-1926 a cell house and a church of the Ascension of the Lord were built in the house. Later, under Mother Maria (Rybar), a wooden chapel of the Holy Prophet Elijah and several more residential buildings were put up - three of wood and clay and two of wood. In 1971 the wood-and-clay buildings were replaced with brick ones, in 1975 the old church of the Ascension with a new one, in 1988 a new bell tower and a new chapel of the Holy Prophet Elijah were raised, in which services are held on the great feasts, in 1989-1990 two more buildings, and in 1991-1995 the large church of the Ascension; since then, from 1994, the small church has served the weekday services³.

Among the convent's holy things are the icon of the Mother of God "Sweet Kissing", a copy of the wonderworking icon of the Athonite monastery of Philotheou, given by the Patriarch of Constantinople to Archbishop Sabbatius, who passed it to Mother Maria in blessing of the newly founded Chumalevo house in 1925; and the icons of the Mother of God "of Iviron" and "Quick to Hear", consecrated on Athos, the first given to the monastery by Archimandrite Vissarion (Matychyn) and Hegumen Valerii (Mirchuk) in 1974, the second by Archimandrite Isaakii (Motyl) in 1975⁴.

The house keeps the Ascension of the Lord, the fortieth day after Pascha; the feast of the icon of the Mother of God "Sweet Kissing" on Bright Monday; and the memory of the Holy Prophet Elijah on 20 July (2 August)⁵. Services are held daily: on Sundays and feast days matins at 7.00, the Liturgy at 10.00, vespers and matins at 17.00; on weekdays the Liturgy at 5.00 and vespers and matins at 17.00⁶.

All three patronal days are attested outside the convent's own calendar as well. On 29 May 2014, the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, the Divine Liturgy here was served by the chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church⁷. On 21 April 2025, Bright Monday, when the house keeps its own icon, a festal Liturgy was served here⁸. And on 2 August 2025, the day of the Holy Prophet Elijah and the hundredth anniversary of the house's founding, a festal Divine Liturgy was served⁹.

On 25 August 2017 the Liturgy at the monastery was led by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church¹⁰. Metropolitan Antonii (Pakanych) is a native of the village of Chumalevo and from childhood visited the convent of the Ascension with his parents, being strengthened there in the faith¹⁰.

Hierarchical services are held at the house on ordinary days of the church year as well: on 12 August 2024, the day of the martyr John the Warrior¹¹; on 6 March 2026, the Friday of the second week of Great Lent, when the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was served here¹²; and on 16 May 2026, the day of St Theodosius of the Caves¹³.