Ukraine - Manyavsky Skyt (Monastery)

Manyava. Manyavsky Skyt (Monastery), 1611.

Sent by Kristine, a postcrosser from Ukraine.

"The Manyavsky Skyt Monastery is surrounded by defensive walls above which rise the pare-shaped domes of a church. The road leading to it climbs high through the dense woods.

The monastery was founded in 1606 by Yov (Job) Knyahynetsky, a Ukrainian from the small town of Tysmenytsya in the land of Prykarpattya (“sub-Carpathian”). Knyahynetsky had spent twenty years at the end of the 16th century in the monastic community of Mount Athos where he had taken monastic vows before he returned to Ukraine with a mission of introducing the monastic rules of Mount Athos into the monasteries of Western Ukraine. And also, he founded a monastery, Manyavsky Skyt (the word “skyt” actually means “a small and secluded monastery”).

There is some evidence though, both archeological and historical, the latter derived from the chronicles, that suggests that there was a skyt in the Horhanska valley dating to as early as the 13th century. It is believed to have been founded by two monks who travelled all the way from the Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv after this city had been captured and ruined by the Mongols in a massive invasion of the Ukrainian lands. The local tradition has it that shortly after these two monks had settled down in the valley close by the tiny river of Baters, the Virgin Mary revealed herself to them and standing on a rock, which since then was called The Blessed Rock, encouraged the monks to go ahead with founding a monastery. When Yov Knyahynetsky came to that place almost four hundred years later, he found no monastery there but the Virgin Mary appeared again and urged him to found a skyt."(Read more)