Mykilske. The St. Basil Monastery in the Donetsk Steppe
The Holy Dormition St. Nicholas and St. Basil Monastery is called the cloister of Father Zosyma, in honour of the founder of one of the largest Orthodox shrines created in modern Ukraine.
The Holy Dormition St. Nicholas and St. Basil Monastery
The monastery is located in the Volnovakha district of Donetsk region, in the ordinary Ukrainian village of Mykilske, with a population of 2,000, founded by settlers from the Poltava and Oryol regions in the middle of the 19th century.
For almost 200 years of its history, the main occupation of the residents was agricultural labour. In 1912, on the site of the old wooden church and with the funds of the parishioners, a stone church was built in honour of St. Basil the Great.
The Church of St. Basil the Great
The church was crowned with nine domes, and the cost of the iconostasis amounted to four thousand roubles in gold. In those far-off years a nun of the Crimean St. Paraskeva Monastery foretold that in the future a monk would serve in the church and that with his coming two cloisters would arise. In the years of the war on God the prayer house was closed and destroyed. In 1954 it was rebuilt with a single dome and a built-in bell tower.
In 1986 the hieromonk Savatii came to serve in the half-ruined church.
Already during the holy father's lifetime, the parishioners named him an elder for his prayerful support and his gift of insight.
Believers began to flock to the church, and together the whole community built a baptistery, a pilgrims' house with a refectory and the brothers' quarters, and opened an almshouse to give help to the sick and the infirm.
The house of mercy, the refectory for pilgrims with the house church of St. Sampson the Hospitable
The sisters' quarters, the pilgrims' hotel, the hospital
The former house of mercy, from which the cloister began. An almshouse for the care of the infirm and the elderly was set up in the building.
In 1992 the archimandrite was tonsured into the schema with the name Zosyma. In 2001 the sisters' community received the status of the Holy St. Nicholas Monastery, and together with the Holy St. Basil men's monastery, registered in 2002, the Holy Dormition St. Nicholas and St. Basil Monastery was formed.
Father Zosyma believed that two cloisters could exist together; such monasteries are not a rarity.
The Holy Dormition St. Nicholas and St. Basil Monastery. The graves of the clergy
The archimandrite called the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God a second Easter, and so in Mykilske the Queen of Heaven watches over two monasteries.
Prayer and labour — the two cornerstones of any monastery, and hard work requires a man's strength. For the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ, the Church of All Saints was built.
After Father Zosyma's death in 2002, the main creation of his whole life was carried on by the communities, the patrons and the benefactors.
The chapel with the relics of Father Zosyma
Within a few years, through feats of mercy and prayer, a hermitage blossomed in the Donetsk steppe.
The waterfall with models of churches
In 2005 the gate church-belfry was erected in honour of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God.
The facade walls were adorned with holy images executed in mosaic.
In 2009 the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God was consecrated, built according to the elder's testament. The church is a reduced copy of the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, the main shrine of the Russian capital, which gave the city its name — the First-Throned.
The cloister lives by the rule adopted during Father Zosyma's lifetime. The order of the hermitage's internal arrangement includes features of the rules of the monastery of Mount Athos, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a monastery in Jerusalem, and all the best from the rules of the other cloisters that Father Zosyma had visited.
The cloister has about 200 residents. Several workshops operate — icon-painting, sewing and gold embroidery, carpentry, and wood carving. Father Zosyma preached that icon-painting, too, is a service to the Lord.
The House of Industry
The sewing workshop
The workshops
The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker stands outside the monastery grounds. The church was built in 1910, but in Soviet times it was used as a warehouse and a slaughterhouse and was destroyed.
After its restoration the church was handed over to the cloister; services are held in it on feast days during the warm season. The walls of the cold church have preserved the framing of the brick cornice and symbols in the shape of a cross. Unfortunately, the plastic doors on the bell tower have deprived the shrine of its authenticity.
Now Mykilske is known in Jerusalem and on holy Mount Athos.
The grounds of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
Groups of pilgrims from various regions of Ukraine come to the monastery for spiritual support. A hotel with a refectory is open for visitors.
The Holy Dormition St. Nicholas and St. Basil Monastery. The House of Industry
The address of the Holy Dormition St. Nicholas and St. Basil Monastery: the village of Mykilske, Volnovakha district, Donetsk region.
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