Sviatohirsk Lavra

The Sviatohirsk Lavra stands on the high right bank of the Siverskyi Donets in northern Donetsk Oblast, where the river cuts into white chalk hills that give the area its old name, the Holy Mountains. From the water meadows below, the monastery reads as a vertical composition: gilded domes and a tall cathedral at the foot of the slope, and high on the pale cliff face the small church of St Nicholas, partly built into the chalk itself, with its altar carved from the rock. Forest covers the ridge behind, and the play of white stone, dark green woods and gilded domes is what makes the ensemble so striking.

Monastic life here is older than any building that survives. Hermits are thought to have settled in the chalk in the fifteenth century, hollowing out cells, passages and underground churches; the Holy Mountains are mentioned in 1526, and the monastery itself in a document of 1627. This was then the open steppe of the Wild Fields, and the community endured repeated raids from the south. Inside the hill a network of cave corridors links several subterranean chapels, including one dedicated to the hermit saints Anthony and Theodosius. The church of St Nicholas on the cliff dates in its present form from after a rebuilding of 1679 and is a rare example of the Kharkiv–Izium regional style of Ukrainian church architecture.

After a long break monastic life was revived in 1844, and most of the ensemble below the cliff belongs to that second life: the Church of the Intercession, finished in 1851 with a belfry, and the Dormition Cathedral, begun in 1859, a building some 53 metres high designed by the architect Aleksey Gornostaev. Anton Chekhov stayed here in the spring of 1887. By the early twentieth century some 600 monks lived at the monastery, but it was closed in 1922 and turned into a rest home. Restoration began in 1992, and in 2004 it was raised to the rank of lavra. It now forms the heart of the Holy Mountains National Nature Park, created in 1997.

Getting there

The lavra is in the small town of Sviatohirsk, about 20 km north of Sloviansk, which is the usual approach by road. The airport nearest in a straight line is Voronezh (VOZ), some 330 km away across the border; the Ukrainian gateway historically used for the region is Kharkiv (HRK). Within the town the monastery lies on the riverbank at the foot of the chalk cliffs, and the upper church is reached on foot by paths and stairs.