Pochayiv Lavra

Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra (Ukrainian: Свято-Успенська Почаївська Лавра, translit. Sviato-Uspenska Pochaivska Lavra, Russian: Свято-Успенская Почаевская Лавра, Polish: Ławra Poczajowska) is a monastery in Pochayiv, Kremenets Raion, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine. For centuries, it has been the foremost spiritual and ideological centre of various Orthodox denominations in Western Ukraine. The monastery tops a 60-metre hill in the town of Pochayiv, 18 km southwest of Kremenets and 70 km north of Ternopil.

History

Origins

A first record of the monastery in Pochayiv dates back to 1527, although a local tradition claims that it was established three centuries earlier, during the Mongol invasion, by several runaway monks, either from the Kiev Monastery of the Caves or from the Holy Mount Athos. The legend has it that the Theotokos appeared to the monks in the shape of a column of fire, leaving her footprint in the rock she stood upon. This imprint came to be revered by the local population and brethren for the curative, medicinal properties of the water that issued from it.

In the 16th century, the abbey was prosperous enough to commission a stone cathedral and to host a busy annual fair. Its standing was further augmented in 1597, when a noble lady, Anna Hoyska, presented to the monastery her extensive lands and a miracle-working icon of the Theotokos. This image, traditionally known as Our Lady of Pochayiv, was given to Hojska by a passer-by Bulgarian bishop, and helped to cure her brother from blindness.

St Job of Pochayiv

In 1604, the monastic community was joined by Ivan Zalizo, a well-known champion of Eastern Orthodoxy in union with the then newly recognised Moscovite patriarchate Russian Orthodox Church and...