Pochaiv Lavra

The Pochaiv Lavra appears long before you reach it. Its gilded domes and white walls crown a hill about 60 metres high above the small town of Pochaiv in western Ukraine, and from the surrounding countryside the monastery reads as a single silhouette of cupolas, bell tower and baroque façade. It is one of the most revered Orthodox monasteries in the country and holds the rare title of lavra, which it received in 1833.

Its origins are wrapped in legend. The monastery is first documented in 1527, but tradition places its beginnings some three centuries earlier, in the time of the Mongol invasion, when the Mother of God is said to have appeared on the hill in a pillar of fire and left the print of her right foot in the rock. That footprint, with a spring rising beneath it, is still venerated inside the main church. The monastery's other treasure is the Pochaiv icon of the Mother of God, given in 1597 by the noblewoman Anna Hoyska after her brother was healed; local tradition credits the icon with turning back the Turkish-Tatar force that besieged the monastery in 1675, an episode later sung in a Cossack duma. Job joined the community in 1604, became its hegumen, imposed a strict monastic rule and was venerated as a saint soon after his death in 1651; his relics rest in an underground church dedicated to him, built in 1774. The monastery's allegiance changed with the politics of the region: it was Orthodox until 1720, then Greek Catholic under the Basilian order until 1831, and Orthodox again afterwards.

The architecture spans three styles and three centuries. The Dormition Cathedral, built between 1771 and 1782, is late baroque on a grand scale; it was designed by Gottfried Hoffmann and completed by Lviv craftsmen and the architect Franciszek Kulczycki, and financed by the magnate Mikołaj Bazyli Potocki, who poured more than two million złoty into the rebuilding and watched over the work himself. The free-standing bell tower, raised in 1861–1871, reaches about 65 metres. Most surprising is the Trinity Cathedral of 1906–1912 by Alexei Shchusev, the architect later known for Lenin's mausoleum: here he looked back to the medieval churches of Pskov and Novgorod, and the austere, sculptural building stands in deliberate contrast to the baroque white and gold beside it. Over its south door is a mosaic of the Saviour Not Made by Hands with holy princes, designed by the painter Nicholas Roerich.

Getting there

The monastery stands in the town of Pochaiv, in Ternopil Oblast. Kremenets is about 19 km away and the regional centre Ternopil about 70 km to the south; both are linked to Pochaiv by road. The nearest airport with international flights by straight line is Suceava Ștefan cel Mare International Airport (SCV) in Romania, about 265 km away. The lavra is a working monastery; check visiting times before you go.