St. Seraphim's Convent

St. Seraphim's Convent of the Hust Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church stands in the mountain village of Lopukhiv in the Tyachiv district of Zakarpattya^{4, 6}.

The village lies on both banks of the river Brusturianka, 70 kilometres from the district centre of Tyachiv, and has been known since 1638⁶.

The village's historic name is Brustury: the Romanian word brusture means burdock, and the Ukrainian name is a translation from the Romanian⁶. In 1946 the village was renamed Lopukhiv, and as early as 2011 the newspaper Uriadovyi Kurier wrote that the village council had twice already resolved to restore the older name⁶.

By Resolution No. 3214-IX of 29 June 2023 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine renamed the village of Lopukhiv as the village of Brustury⁷.

The house was founded in 2003¹. The historian Yurii Danylets notes that in 2003-2006 the statutes of a number of Orthodox monasteries and sketes in Zakarpattya were registered, among them one in Lopukhiv⁵.

In 2006 the monastery was formally opened and the first Liturgy was celebrated in it¹. The opening of St. Seraphim's Convent in Lopukhiv, Tyachiv district, of the Hust Diocese was blessed by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at its sitting of 22 November 2006, by Journal No. 58, on the report of Archbishop Ioann of Hust and Vynohradiv³.

By 2007 a chapel and the first residential block had been built in the house and the building of a church had begun¹. By 2010 the church of St Seraphim of Sarov had been raised¹.

A regional Zakarpattya publication, writing about the Brusturianske forestry and hunting enterprise, said that the monastery of St Seraphim of Sarov had been built by a forester, and dated this to 2010⁸.

Among the shrines of the house are particles of the relics of St Seraphim of Sarov and of other saints².

The Hust Diocese calls the house a mountain convent¹⁰. The ruling bishop of the diocese has led festal services here on the days of the commemoration of St Seraphim of Sarov on many occasions, from 2014 to 2025^{9, 10, 11, 12}.

Reporting on the feast of 2014, the diocese noted that, despite the remoteness of the place, many clergy and laypeople had gathered to glorify the saint⁹.

Uriadovyi Kurier, in an essay about the village, wrote that in the evening the peal of bells carries over the surrounding slopes and ravines - the voices of the convent announcing Vespers - and that the measured life of the nuns, who pray both for themselves and for their countrymen, does not cease for a moment⁶.