Bar Icon of the Mother of God Convent

The convent in honour of the Bar Icon of the Mother of God stands in the village of Hayove on the edge of the town of Bar in the Vinnytsia region and belongs to the Vinnytsia eparchy^{3, 4}. The house bears the name of an icon whose veneration in Podillia is older than the community itself¹⁰.

By ancient tradition, from the seventeenth century the Bar image of the Mother of God was kept in an Orthodox men's monastery in Podillia, built in a dense forest, and was housed there in a wooden church¹⁰. The chronicle of the Bar men's monastery for the year 1723 bears witness to the icon: in the main altar, in a special niche under a silver-gilt riza, stood an image of the Mother of God with the Child Christ in her arms, of old Byzantine painting, with silver crowns and a radiant nimbus above the faces¹⁰.

The historical essay of the Bar deanery, drawing on the Podillia eparchial gazette of 1887, places the first men's house here in the middle of the sixteenth century and considers more plausible the version by which it stood not in the town itself but in the neighbouring village of Semenky⁵. After the union of 1596 the monastery declined and, in the same essay's estimate, became a burnt-out ruin and disappeared in the middle of the seventeenth century⁵; the estates of the ravaged house passed to the Jesuits and then to the Basilians^{3, 4}.

On 22 January 1715 the Basilians established their own monastery at Semenky⁵. The visitation records of 1756 and 1760 show the house behind a thick oak palisade, with a single-domed church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul of cut oak timber in the middle of the grounds⁵. Later the monks moved from Semenky into Bar itself, into the buildings of the former Jesuit monastery⁵.

In 1837 the buildings of the Bar monastery were handed over to the Orthodox spiritual department^{3, 4, 5}. In the former Basilian premises an Orthodox men's monastery of the Protection began its existence, and its first superior and builder was the hieromonk Ihnatii, who came from the house of Holovchyntsi⁶.

From 1845 to 1860 a theological school worked at the monastery, where the children of the Podillia clergy were educated^{3, 4}. On 19 December 1845 the hegumen Nektarii (Nadezhdin) became its deputy superior, and by his efforts the third and fourth classes of the school were placed at Bar and a preparatory course was opened at the monastery⁶. He himself ended his life as archbishop of Kharkiv, while his successor, the hegumen Kyprian (Pavlov), died of cholera on 10 July 1848 and was buried in the garden beside the church of the Protection⁶.

In 1860 the eparchial administration moved the school to Kamianets-Podilskyi, and with it went the last deputy superior, who had combined the offices of rector of the school and hegumen of the monastery^{3, 4, 6}.

The last years of the men's house were unhappy: from 1870 the reports to the eparchial authorities spoke of drunkenness among the monks and the squandering of monastery property, and the author of the essay connects this with the choice of the Bar monastery, out of the nine men's houses, for disbandment⁶.

The renaming of the men's monastery as a women's house took place by a decree of the Holy Synod in 1881; the historical essay dates the decision to 20 June, while the eparchial and deanery accounts of the monastery give 20 July of the same year^{3, 4, 6}. The reason is named in the decree itself: the Podillia eparchy then had nine men's monasteries with 113 monks and only two women's houses with 119 nuns, while a good many who wished to enter could not do so for want of places^{3, 4, 6}.

The monks of the Bar monastery were distributed among other houses, and in their place came sisters from Brailiv: the treasurer of the Brailiv house, the nun Melytyna, with the rank of superior, the nun Lidiia as treasurer, and with them six more nuns and five novices^{3, 6}. The formal handover took place on 20 September 1881 in the presence of Ioann Korchynskyi, a priest of the town of Bar, and the whole cash in hand of the house then amounted to 46 roubles 49 kopecks⁶.

The first maintenance came from the Brailiv house: its abbess Palladiia gave the sisters provisions, a pair of horses with a cart, a milch cow with a calf and about 40 roubles in cash⁶. At the petition of the dean of monasteries, the archimandrite Yevmenii (Belchanskyi), the Bar house was issued two petitionary books, which gave the right to collect donations throughout the eparchy⁶.

On 5 September 1884 Melytyna was appointed deputy superior of the Brailiv house, and the Bar monastery was headed by the nun Lidiia⁶. The sisters repaired the church of the Protection in the central block and fitted out cells, and on 29 October 1884 they consecrated in honour of Saint Nicholas the former house church of Saint Athanasius, built while the theological school was there; so the house acquired a warm church for prayer through the winter⁶.

In 1887 the Holy Synod established a church-wide veneration of the Bar Icon of the Mother of God on 1 (14) October, the day of the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God^{3, 4, 11}. For the jubilee the image, which until then had stood in a niche above the high place in the altar, was set in gilded frames and placed above the royal doors, from which it was lowered on ribbons wound by a special screw⁷.

The celebration itself, on 1 October 1887, was permitted by a separate decision of the Synod⁷. Cross processions from ten parishes of three districts were appointed to the house, and on the eve there arrived Donat (Babynskyi-Sokolov), bishop of Podillia and Bratslav⁷. At the liturgy the protodeacon read out the Synod's address to the house, and at the little entrance the hierarch laid a pectoral cross upon the abbess Lidiia⁷.

In 1908 the nuns built a majestic three-tier bell tower; in those years about 150-160 nuns from every social stratum of the society of the day laboured in the house⁸. The deputy superior at the time of the revolutionary events was the abbess Sofiia (Rachynska), who was born in 1860 in the village of Talytsia, was orphaned at the age of two and was taken to be brought up in a monastery⁸.

With the blessing of Lollii (Yurievskyi), bishop of Mohyliv-Podilskyi, the abbess Sofiia composed in 1921 an akathist to the Bar Icon of the Mother of God, which the eparchial account dates to 14 October^{3, 4, 8}. She is the author of about ten akathists and of an office to Saint Olympias⁸.

In 1920 the monastery buildings burned to the ground and only the walls were left, and between 1921 and 1923 the house ceased to exist; the exact date of its closure is unknown, and the district council, the house of culture and the library were installed in the repaired buildings⁸. The abbess Sofiia with fourteen sisters moved to the monastery premises of the village of Kryvokhyzhentsi, from which they were evicted as early as 1922, and then on to Halaikivtsi, where the sisters lived in caves; there she ended her earthly course⁸.

In August 1941 the Bar convent of the Protection resumed its existence, and to it returned the nuns who after the closure had scattered, some to Brailiv, some to their homes, some to other villages⁸. The abbess was the nun Klavdiia (Kseniia Oleksiivna Horbeshko), born in 1888 at Murovani Kurylivtsi, who entered a monastery in 1900, lived from 1910 to 1923 at Harbin, and was tonsured in 1933 in the village of Seferovka⁸.

In a short time the sisters repaired 15 cells and restored the services in the cathedral of the Protection and the church of Saint Nicholas, and the community was joined by five novices⁸. From 1944 the house was headed by the nun Meletyna (Mariia Ivanivna Steblinova), born in 1870, who asked that the elderly nuns be allowed to live out their days in their historic monastery, and from 1947 the abbess Klavdiia was deputy superior once again⁸.

In 1948 the authorities forced the sisters to give up the southern block with its warm church of Saint Nicholas for a house of culture⁹. The abbess Klavdiia protested in writing, and the bishop of Vinnytsia and Bratslav of the day, Yakiv (Zaika), asked that a club "with its music, its dancing and its noise" should not be joined with the monastery in one and the same yard⁹. The nuns were moved into the large block, rent was taken from them, and they had neither a common kitchen nor heating⁹.

In 1953 the abbess Klavdiia and the sisters repaired the roof and the interior fittings of the church⁹. Flats were made in the bell tower, and on 28 August 1957, the feast of the Dormition, several motorcycles and cars drove onto the monastery grounds and drowned out the service with the noise of their engines⁹. In 19 years of the restored house 16 clergy were changed here⁹.

On 15 June 1960 a decision was taken to liquidate the monastery and transfer the nuns to the Holy Trinity house at Brailiv⁹. When Brailiv too was closed in 1962, the abbess Klavdiia with the nuns Serafyma, Amvrosiia and Kheruvyma and the rasophore nun Havryila bought half a house in Bar and took the Bar image there, and it was hidden until the 1990s^{3, 4, 9}.

The last keeper of the relic was mother Havryila^{3, 4}. In February 1994 she sent a telegram to the archpriest Volodymyr Minaiev in the village of Dachne in the Odesa region: "Come at once and take the icon for safe keeping in your church, and when everything has quietened down, I ask that it be returned to the monastery that will be rebuilt in honour of the icon"¹⁰. In 1999 the relic was brought to Bar and carried in a cross procession into the Holy Dormition cathedral, where it was set in a special case beside the iconostasis^{3, 4, 10}.

In 2002 the metropolitan of Vinnytsia and Mohyliv-Podilskyi blessed the founding at Bar of a community in honour of the Bar Icon of the Mother of God, and on the edge of the town the building of a church of Blessed Matrona of Moscow began, around which the community took shape^{3, 4}. On 1 June 2010, by a decree of the ruling bishop, the church and the land were transferred as a skete of the Brailiv convent, and on 19 October of the same year the church of Blessed Matrona was consecrated^{3, 4, 10}.

From 1 October to 31 December 2010 the Bar Icon was carried in a cross procession through every deanery of the Vinnytsia eparchy^{3, 4}. On 12 January 2011, in a solemn cross procession with the clergy of the eparchy taking part, the image was moved from the Holy Dormition cathedral of Bar into the church of the skete, and since then the Divine Liturgy has been served there daily, before which the sisters and the parishioners sing an akathist before the image^{3, 4, 12}. In the same year the Holy Synod moved the feast of the Bar Icon to 1 October of the new style, and on that feast the newly built block for the sisters was consecrated^{3, 4}.

On 4 June 2012, the day of the Holy Spirit, the solemn foundation was laid of a cathedral in honour of the Bar Icon of the Mother of God with a lower church in honour of the Prophet Elijah^{3, 4}. On 20 July 2012 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church resolved: "To bless the opening of a convent in honour of the Bar Icon of the Mother of God in the town of Bar, Vinnytsia region" - journal No. 51¹. On 1 October 2012, the day of the icon's feast, the first patronal liturgy was served under the open sky, within the walls of the lower church of the future cathedral⁴.

On 5 January 2013 the Holy Synod formed the Mohyliv-Podilskyi eparchy, separating it from the Vinnytsia and Tulchyn eparchies, left the Bar district within the Vinnytsia eparchy and ruled that its bishop should thenceforth be styled "of Vinnytsia and Bar" - journal No. 18².

By the end of 2016 the lower church in honour of the Prophet Elijah had been consecrated and a hostel block had been built for pilgrims⁹. On 1 October 2017 the house marked the 130th anniversary of the glorification of the Bar Icon, and in October of the same year the town hosted the first international conference "Spiritual Treasuries of Podillia", devoted to that anniversary and to the 260th anniversary of the Holy Dormition cathedral of Bar¹¹. On 19 September 2019 the altar of the monastery's main church was consecrated¹³.

On 4 November 2022 an ancient copy of the Bar Icon, which after the Soviet closure of the house had been kept at the Holy Nicholas men's monastery in Sharhorod, was brought first to the Brailiv house and that same evening to the Bar convent^{14, 15, 16}. The ruling bishop served a moleben before the image and said: "The Mother of God has returned to Her own house in this ancient image, prayed over and, we believe, wonderworking"¹⁶. On 12 January 2023, at the eparchy-wide feast of the transfer of the Bar Icon, the image was carried in a cross procession from the Holy Dormition cathedral of Bar to the house¹⁷.