Holy Mandylion Protection Convent

In the summer of 2017, while a convent was being founded in the village of Vilkha, Romaniv district, in the Zhytomyr region, the rector of the village church of the Protection of the Mother of God, Schema-Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Voloshchenko), told a local news outlet that a huge two-storey church of St Demetrius had once stood here, and that it was destroyed by tanks in 1962⁴. It was on the site of that parish that the new house was established¹.

The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church resolved it at its session of 26 July 2017 in the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, on the report of the ruling bishop of the Zhytomyr Eparchy: it blessed the establishment of the Holy Saviour and Protection Convent of the Zhytomyr Eparchy on the site of the parish of the Protection in the village of Vilkha, Romaniv district, and the adoption and registration of the house's statute^{1, 3}.

The reason the convent could come into being at all was given by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in his greeting of 24 August 2017: the faithful handed over all the property of the village religious community for the founding of the new house².

At the end of July that year the convent occupied a skete building about three hundred metres from the church, and ten sisters lived in it; they prayed in the Kazan church, the second church of the village, while the central monastery church in honour of the Image of the Saviour Not Made by Hands had only just been laid down⁴.

The house was built by Schema-Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Voloshchenko). Until July 2017 he was rector of the village church of the Protection⁴, and thereafter the sources call him the founder, the spiritual father and the builder of the monastery^{5, 6}.

The church whose foundation had been laid - in honour of the Image of the Saviour Not Made by Hands - was consecrated on 26 September 2020, the Saturday before the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross. The rite of consecration of that newly built church was led by the Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with four further hierarchs concelebrating; a procession was made around it, and the Liturgy that day was served in the paschal manner, because on that day the Church commemorates the renewal of the church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem⁵.

Schema-Archimandrite Amfilokhii departed into eternity on 9 June 2024, in his 55th year, after a long and exhausting illness⁶. He was buried on 11 June: the funeral Liturgy was led by the ruling bishop, the choir of the seminarians of the Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra sang, and after the rite of burial the coffin was carried from the church of the Protection to the place of burial on the grounds of the church of the Saviour Not Made by Hands⁶.

A year later, on 9 June 2025, the Day of the Holy Spirit, the lower church in honour of Sts Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves was consecrated in the house, within the Holy Trinity cathedral being built there⁷. At the same Liturgy memorial prayers were offered for the founder and builder of the monastery, who had reposed a year before, and afterwards at his grave⁷.

In the summer of 2026 the eparchy's children's camp ran for three weeks on the grounds of the house, with over a hundred children taking part; its programme that year was devoted to the study of the sacraments of the Church⁸.