The monastery of Petschenga : $b Sketches of Russian Lapland (from historical and legendary sources)Friis, J. A. (Jens Andreas)
History
The monastery of Petschenga : $b Sketches of Russian Lapland (from historical and legendary sources)
Friis, J. A. (Jens Andreas)
Legends -- Lapland; Petschenga (Monastery)
Theodore had told him that he might choose any girl among all the
serfs, and that he should have her. Unnas fell in love with a girl who
was a complete contrast to himself—the tallest girl in all the
village—and for a good word, and a good house, and a piece of land, she
gave the little Finn both her hand and her heart. She was at all events
certain of never getting a thrashing from her husband. Thus it came
about that to this day Theodore and Unnas’ descendants live at Olonets.
With this, the romance of the monastery comes to an end. As regards the
ethnographical portion of it a little further may be added.
When information of the destruction of the monastery reached the Czar,
the pious Theodore Ivanovitsch, he is said to have been deeply grieved,
and to have expressed his sorrow at the disaster. To assist those of
the monks who had recovered, and were homeless, he gave orders that a
new monastery should be built at Kola, within the fortress, so that it
might be secure from attacks of the Swedes, or other enemies. The
church of the Annunciation of St. Mary in the town was granted, and the
monastery was built close to the church. But in the year 1619 both the
town and the church and monastery were destroyed by fire.
After this, the then Czar, the orthodox Michael Theodorovitsch, ordered
that a monastery should be built in the neighbourhood of the town, but
on the other side of the Kola River. This new monastery received the
name of New Petschenga, or Koloska Petschenga monastery, and had its
own Archimandrites or Superiors, till the bishopric of Archangel was
founded.
In 1675 Alexei Michaelovitsch confirmed to this monastery the
privileges which former monarchs had bestowed on the monastery at
Petschenga. Probably it was the erection of this monastery which caused
one Russian author to state that at one time there were two monasteries
at the Petschenga River.
In the year 1701 it is said there were thirteen monks in this
monastery, and, according to a letter from Laurence, the Superior of
it, to Archbishop Athanasius, the monastery exported in that year
‘12,752 stockfish, 144 pounds of train-oil, and 2,470 salmon.’ But this
is the last occasion on which anything is said of the industrial
activity of the monastery. Among the Archimandrites of the New
Petschenga monastery is mentioned the holy Jonas, a pupil of Trifon;
and, like Trifon, he is still had in reverence by the pilgrims and by
the inhabitants of the district.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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