"Life-Bearing Well" Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The convent in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-Giving Spring" belongs to the Khmelnytskyi eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and stands in the village of Zavaliyky, Volochysk raion, in the Khmelnytskyi region, on Tsentralna Street; the services are celebrated in Church Slavonic⁵. The eparchy counts the house among its four monasteries⁶.

The site has a prehistory of its own. By archival data, a church of St Michael the Archangel was built in Zavaliyky in 1762, and in 1932-1933 the church was taken apart for building material². The house preserves a tradition that in those same years a barefoot man went about the village foretelling that a time would come when the church would be restored and nuns would live in the village².

In the 1990s a new church of St Michael was raised in the old village cemetery, and a chapel of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-Giving Spring" was built at the locally venerated spring². From 2006 to 2012 a church of the Holy Trinity was erected on the site of the demolished church of St Michael, and its lower chapel was consecrated in 2009; in the same year the chapel and the bathing place at the spring were rebuilt².

On 18 October 2007 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, having heard the report of the ruling bishop, by its journal no. 85 blessed the opening of a convent in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-Giving Spring" in Zavaliyky, Volochysk raion, Khmelnytskyi oblast¹. By the house's own account, the monastery was founded at the newly built church of the Holy Trinity².

The house also carries a social ministry. By decree no. 3 of the Khmelnytskyi eparchial administration of 7 March 2016, adopted upon a decision of the general assembly of the sisters, an Orthodox sisterhood in honour of the same icon was founded at the monastery — for the care of the sick and of orphans, for a home patronage service, and for catechetical work with the patients and the medical staff of the Volochysk district hospital; oversight of the sisterhood rests with the superior of the house, who reports regularly to the eparchial administration⁴.

The house keeps two feasts: the Day of the Holy Trinity, the fiftieth day after Pascha, and the celebration of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-Giving Spring" on the Friday of Bright Week³. On that very day, 3 May 2019, the festal Divine Liturgy at the convent was led by the ruling Metropolitan of Khmelnytskyi and Starokostiantyniv, and after the Liturgy the traditional Paschal moleben with a cross procession was served⁷.

The monastic life of the house goes on. On 3 July 2023 the ruling bishop tonsured two nuns of the house into the great schema and one novice into the little schema⁸, and on 13 March 2026 two novices of the house received the ryasophor tonsure and were given names in honour of St Joanna the Myrrh-bearer and the Great Martyr Barbara⁹.