According to legend, in the Middle Ages monasteries were built near sites of pre-Christian culture, and also where a holy image had appeared. Many cloisters were spiritual centres and places of pilgrimage for centuries, yet have not survived to our day. Relics gathered over the ages vanished; the houses of prayer did not outlive reforms and troubled times, and were burnt and destroyed. These holy places lie far from tourist routes, surrounded by silence and filled with spiritual power. One of the vanished monasteries had existed since time immemorial in the village of Rudnyky, and now a memorial chapel has been erected on the holy site.
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| Rudnyky, Lviv region. The chapel of Sts Peter and Paul on the site of the vanished monastery |
The shrine is not marked on the map; I knew its whereabouts only roughly — that the memorial chapel stands on the western edge of the village. To reach the site of the ruined cloister I walked 6.7 kilometres through the whole village and as far back again, taking in the village landmarks along the way.
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| Rudnyky, Lvivska Street |
The village of Rudnyky in the Stryi district of the Lviv region lies 40 kilometres south of the regional centre along the T 14 02 road Skhidnytsia – Pisochna, which flows into the M 06 highway Kyiv – Chop at the eastern edge of the village. At the crossing of these busy routes stands the third Dzhublyk cross of the longest Way of the Cross, laid out in 2004. Fifteen such crosses, symbolising the 15 Stations of the Passion of Christ, mark the pilgrims' route in Kyiv, Lviv, Donetsk and Zakarpattia.
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| Rudnyky. The Dzhublyk cross, the 3rd station of the Way of the Cross |
My own way ran along the main village street, five kilometres long, past sturdy homesteads where on that October day the villagers were gathering in their harvest of pumpkins and potatoes.
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| Rudnyky, Lvivska Street |
I take note of the old cottages, the typical village dwelling of Prykarpattia in the early 20th century. These witnesses of historic milestones have survived amid the trim rows of newly built mansions and villas and are still used by the villagers as homes or outbuildings.
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| Rudnyky. Village housing, first half of the 20th century |
The first written mention of Rudnyky dates from 1435, and the area is considered the first producer of Galician iron. Archaeologists have uncovered the prototype of a metallurgical complex that supplied metal in the 9th-11th centuries. The toponym owes its origin to a deposit of bog ore in the northern part of the village.
In the centre of the village the street changes its name from Lvivska to Drohobytska – westward the road leads to Drohobych, eastward to Lviv.
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| Rudnyky. Monument to the fighters for the freedom of Ukraine |
At the crossroads in 1965 the people of Rudnyky put up a monument to Taras Shevchenko quite unlike other sculptural portraits of the poet-prophet. Schoolchildren and newlyweds, toddlers and the elderly bring flowers to the foot of the classic on Shevchenko anniversaries, on other holidays and on days of mourning.
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| Rudnyky. Monument to Taras Shevchenko |
On the other side of the crossroads, in 1997, appeared a statue of the Most Holy Mother of God, made in the village of Demnia.
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| Rudnyky. Sculpture of the Most Holy Mother of God |
On the highest hill rises the church of St Michael, built in 1885 on the site of a wooden church of 1723 that had burnt down. At the wish of the wife of Polianskyi, the local landowner, the church was to resemble the Kyiv cathedral, and a village delegation travelled to the capital to make sketches. The seven-domed church was designed by Skolozdra, a resident of Rudnyky, and the murals were painted by Teofil Kopystynskyi, a renowned icon painter and illustrator of the works of Ivan Franko. The facade of the house of prayer is adorned with a mosaic panel depicting the Archangel Michael.
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Rudnyky. St Michael's church and the bell tower
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Beside the church lies the village cemetery with its stone crosses.
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| Rudnyky. The cemetery with stone crosses |
In the churchyard, beside the two-tiered wooden bell tower, the landowner Teodozii Polianskyi honoured the memory of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. In 1898 an Italian anarchist, seeking fame, mortally wounded the empress with a sharpened file, an event that deeply stirred the whole European nobility — and the lord of Rudnyky resolved to immortalise the memory of Sisi with her bas-relief on a four-sided stone pyramid.
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| Rudnyky. Monument to Empress Elisabeth |
The bus shelters adorned with mosaic pictures could well pass for monuments of monumental art, if only these structures of the 1980s could be renovated and kept in order.
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| Rudnyky. Bus shelters with mosaic pictures |
On the western edge of the village the road forks south (Krynytsia, Drohobych) and north (Rozdilychi, Hirske). From the fork there remains another 1.3 kilometres north to the ruined monastery, along an asphalt road towards the Rudnyky lakes, known for their fish farm and as a place of recreation. In the 1980s, during a flood, the waters of the Dnister overfilled the ponds, and when the water receded the lake fish were left on the meadows, pastures and shallows — a windfall not only for the fishermen but for anyone who cared to come.
At the roadside, a memorial plaque-signpost has been set on a mound of stones.
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| Rudnyky. The signpost to the vanished monastery |
A dirt path framed by birches, chestnuts and lindens leads to the chapel, built in 2004 on the site of the destroyed shrine.
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| Rudnyky. The chapel of Sts Peter and Paul |
By one account the monastery of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul was founded in princely times, while the written record "History of the Order of the Basilian Fathers" documents the monastery from 1641. In 1675 Turkish and Tatar hordes burnt the village and the cloister, but two monks who survived strove to save the monastery, rebuild the place of prayer and restore monastic life. In the 18th century the situation of the monasteries grew complicated. Under the new church reforms the smaller cloisters were abolished, merged into larger ones, and the monks transferred to other monasteries. The church of Sts Peter and Paul was dismantled and sold to the village of Litnia, 20 kilometres from here, and the monastery land passed to the landlord.
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| Rudnyky. On the site of the vanished monastery |
In the years of the First World War the church in Litnia suffered as well, and the church archives, manuscripts and monastery chronicles burnt — without them the history of the monastery is hard to piece together. The villagers did not leave the historic spot neglected: they gave much effort, prayer and labour to reviving the shrine. On the grounds of the former cloister a domed chapel has been raised, a resting area laid out, benches set up and flowers planted. On 29 June (12 July), the day of Sts Peter and Paul, parishioners from Rudnyky and the neighbouring villages come to the chapel for a service — to honour the apostles, bow to the holy ground and remember their historic roots. After the prayers one can admire the picturesque scenery of the regrown woodland and touch the stones that keep the ancient story. A pilgrim's outing with a tour of the Rudnyky landmarks will leave fond memories of this quiet corner of prayer.
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| Rudnyky. Sculpture of an angel on the site of the vanished monastery |
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