Athos Icon of the Mother of God stauropegial Convent

The tract of Kypiache lies on the right bank of the river Irsha among the forests of the Zhytomyr region, a few kilometres from the settlement of Chopovychi¹; here stands the stauropegial convent of the Athonite icon of the Mother of God³. By the house's own account the tract owes its name to a spring that broke out here in 1911, whose water began to boil as in the pool of Siloam¹.

The house began from a community of sisters of mercy in 2001, and on 24 January 2007 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, by its journal no. 8, blessed the opening at Chopovychi in the Malyn district of the Zhytomyr region of a convent in honour of the Athonite icon of the Mother of God ⁴. In 2009 the monastery was consecrated by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church⁵.

On 20 July 2012, by journal no. 59, the Synod granted the house the status of a stauropegy under the direct governance of the Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine. The note attached to that same journal states that the church of the monastery and nine blocks were built at the expense of the religious community of the Kyiv church of St Michael, first metropolitan of Kyiv, and that all the sisters of the house - at that time twenty nuns, forty inokini and twenty novices - were natives of Kyiv and formerly sisters of mercy⁵.

The house has sketes of its own. On 5 January 2013, by journal no. 1, the Synod blessed the opening of two sketes of the stauropegial monastery: of St Siluan of Athos in the village of Zahreblia in the Malyn district, and of the icon of the Mother of God "of Iviron" in the village of Sobolivka in the Brusyliv district⁶. On 19 June 2014, by journal no. 11, the skete of St Siluan was withdrawn from the subordination of this house and attached to the metochion of the Athonite monastery of St Panteleimon of the Kyiv eparchy⁷. And on 29 December 2016, by journal no. 70, the Synod blessed the amendment and adoption in a new redaction of the statute of the religious organisation "Stauropegial Convent of the Athonite Icon of the Mother of God" of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church⁸.

The chief church of the house is dedicated to all the venerable and God-bearing fathers who shone on the Holy Mountain of Athos. It stands on twelve stones brought from the Holy Mountain by the spiritual father of the house, who carried them in his rucksack from his pilgrimages; among its holy objects are a portion of the belt of the Mother of God, relics of twenty-four elders from Athos blessed by the hegumen of the monastery of St Panteleimon, and the icon "of the Three Hands"². In the basement storey of that church a church of the Dormition of the Mother of God is arranged, with the icon of the Mother of God "the Consoler"². The house also has a church of the hieromartyr Cyprian and the martyr Justina, from under whose altar a spring flows and beside which three pools of different sizes are arranged, a church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker, and a church in the monastery cemetery².

Among the holy objects of the monastery are a cross with a portion of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, a portion of the belt of the Mother of God from the Athonite monastery of Vatopedi, relics of the hieromartyr Cyprian and the martyr Justina that came from Cyprus, relics of St Spyridon of Trimythous and relics of the unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian². The Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the archimandrite of the house¹⁰: on 5 January 2022, on the eve of the Nativity of Christ, he gave the monastery a portion of the relics of the holy Great Martyr Catherine of Alexandria - the reliquary was brought by the superior, a procession went round the house, and a service was celebrated in the church⁹.

More than a hundred and twenty sisters live in the house today¹.