Motronynskyi Trinity Monastery

Motronynskyi Trinity Monastery (Мотронинський Свято-Троїцький монастир; Motronynskyi Sviato-Troitskyi manastyr; also Saint Matrona's Monastery). A monastery near Chyhyryn, in Motronynskyi forest near Kholodnyi Yar, founded sometime before 1568. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was a center of Orthodox life in the southern Kyiv region. During the tenure of Hegumen Melkhysedek Znachko-Yavorsky (1753–8), it was a center of preparations for the Koliivshchyna rebellion; Maksym Zalizniak lived there. The baroque stone Trinity Church (built in 1800–4; depicted in an 1845 watercolor by Taras Shevchenko) is still standing. In 1910 the monastery housed 9 monks and 23 novices; it was closed by the Soviet authorities in the 1920s. It was returned to the Orthodox church in 1991 and reinstated as a women’s monastery. In 2004 the monastery housed 28 nuns.

[This article was updated in 2008.]