Korsun Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The convent in honour of the Korsun Icon of the Mother of God stands in the village of Korsunka near Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region. Its origin lies in the movement of Old Believers who sought to restore canonical unity with the Orthodox Church on the terms of edinoverie: the Starodub monk Nykodym petitioned for ordination for the edinovertsy, and the work he began was carried through by another Starodub monk, Ioasaf, who became the founder of the monastery^{1, 2}.

On 26 August 1785 Empress Catherine II, through Prince Potemkin, permitted Old Believers to settle in Tavria and build their own monastery^{1, 2}. In 1787, by Potemkin's order, construction began at the Karai Dubyna tract near Velyka Znamianka, and on 31 December 1787 Bishop Amvrosii of Tavria issued Archimandrite Ioasaf a charter for the monastery under construction¹.

On 18 October 1791 the Katerynoslav consistory confirmed Ioasaf as superior, and the monks Dorofii and Serapion were ordained hieromonk and hierodeacon respectively^{1, 2}. Already in 1790 the first, wooden church in honour of the Korsun icon had been built; it burned down in 1792, and in 1795 a new church rose on its site with a side-altar in honour of Saint John Chrysostom, and that same year the monastery's chapel was converted into a church of Saint Nicholas^{1, 2}.

In 1796 the distance from the Dnipro and the lack of riverside timber prompted Ioasaf to request the monastery's relocation; on 5 April 1796 an imperial decree permitted the move to the Frolove tract near Beryslav, granting, as at the former site, 3,000 desyatinas of land¹. By a decree of the Tavria regional government of 14 March 1797 this plot - together with a further 2,447 desyatinas 775 square sazhens of land deemed unsuitable - was finally transferred to the monastery, and on 9 October 1797 the brethren relocated there, to the site of present-day Korsunka^{1, 2}.

In 1802, at the expense of a neighbouring landowner, Dmytro Kulykovsky, a small stone church in honour of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki was built, with his family crypt beneath it^{1, 2, 3}. In 1803, with the blessing of Bishop Afanasii of Kherson and Tavria, the monastery's builder, Archimandrite Ioasaf, completed and consecrated the five-domed stone cathedral in honour of the Korsun icon, and in 1804 the refectory church in honour of Saint Michael of Synnada was consecrated^{1, 2}.

The monastery existed on edinoverie terms until 1848-1849, when, following the reports of Archbishop Innokentii, synodal decrees transferred it to the status of an ordinary first-class monastery under the direct administration of the diocesan bishop, headed by a namestnik^{1, 2}. In 1857 a new cemetery church in honour of Christ's Resurrection was built about a verst from the monastery and consecrated by Archbishop Dymytrii of Kherson^{1, 3}. In 1863, following the 1860 division of the Kherson and Tavria eparchies, a synodal decree placed the monastery under the jurisdiction of the Tavria eparchy¹.

In 1882 a church of Saint Nicholas was arranged in the superior's residence; in 1888-1889 a new refectory church was built in honour of Saint Innokentii of Irkutsk, and in 1891 a new stone bell tower 38 metres (18 sazhens) high, for which nine bells were cast the following year^{1, 2, 3}. Before 1917 the most venerated monasteries of the Kherson eparchy were said to be the Korsun and Byzyukiv men's monasteries and the Annunciation convent².

The founder and first superior, Archimandrite Ioasaf, died on 25 September 1808 in Moscow, where he had gone to collect donations, and was buried in the edinoverie cemetery there; the second superior, Archimandrite Kyrylo, governed the monastery for 16 years and died on 6 September 1826, and was buried behind the cathedral's altar^{1, 2}. The third superior, Archimandrite Tykhon, headed the monastery for 14 years; during his tenure 42,000 assignation rubles of the monastery's funds were stolen, and six months after that event, on 23 September 1840, he died and was buried beside his predecessor^{1, 2}.

In July 1848 the monastery's dean for a time was the hieromartyr Parfenii, hegumen of the Kyzyltash coenobium^{1, 3}. In 1897-1900 the retired Bishop Volodymyr (Shymkovych) lived at the monastery; he later became Metropolitan of Voronezh and Zadonsk and died in 1926¹.

On 14 March 1918 Archbishop Dymytrii (Abashidze) of Tavria and Symferopol reported to Patriarch Tikhon that the Bolsheviks had "plundered and completely ruined the wealthy Korsun monastery in Dnipro uyezd"¹. During the Civil War the monastery played a role in the creation of the Kakhovka bridgehead and repeatedly became a stronghold for one side or the other of the warring parties; Makhnovist forces also came here and looted the monastery's property^{1, 2}.

In October 1920 Soviet power was finally established in Dnipro uyezd, and the monastery's land was confiscated; in 1930 a state farm, "Peremoha revoliutsii" (Victory of the Revolution), was organised on it, later becoming part of the Askania-Nova reserve, to which 268 hectares of the former monastery land passed¹. In 1922, on the pretext of combating the famine on the Volga, church valuables were seized from the monastery; at the same time the monastery library was burned, in which 17 Old Rus' and Serbian manuscripts of the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries had been kept, and the trace of the monastery's chief holy object, the Korsun icon, was lost and remains unknown to this day^{1, 2}.

At the same time the two hotels beyond the monastery wall and the bishop's house, built to the personal design of Archbishop Hurii (Karpov) of Tavria, now glorified by the Church among the saints, were dismantled; the material was used for the needs of the reserve¹. In 1955-56 the monastery's own cathedral of the Korsun icon was also dismantled; at about the same time a water tower was added onto the chapel of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and the Kulykovsky family crypt beneath it was filled in^{1, 3}.

In 1947 the former monastery buildings housed a children's home, and from 1969 a school for the social rehabilitation of juvenile offenders, whose customs are described in Oles Honchar's novella "Bryhantyna"⁴. In 1999 the priest Kostiantyn Lobanov obtained from the school administration the transfer of the former refectory church for the resumption of services, and carried out the first repairs there^{1, 2, 3}.

In 2003-2005 several priests served in succession at the reviving church: Leonid Tymoshenko (until March 2003), archpriest Viktor Havryliuk, Oleh Yaniuk (July-August 2004) and Illia Boloha (from April 2005)^{1, 2}. On 26 June 2008, having obtained permission to excavate, the then rector of the church began a search near the apse of the demolished cathedral for the graves of early-nineteenth-century superiors; the remains of Archimandrites Kyrylo and Tykhon were soon found¹. On 5 October 2008 the rite of reburial was led by Ioasaf, bishop of the newly formed Novokakhovka eparchy, whose monastic name coincides with that of the monastery's founder¹.

On 9 September 2009, on the petition of the same Bishop Ioasaf of Novokakhovka and Henichesk, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the opening of a convent in honour of the Korsun Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Korsunka - journal no. 48 of that session^{3, 5}. In October 2012 the monastery marked 225 years since its founding².