Optina Pustyn – the Center of Russian Spirituality

The fate of the Optina Pustyn was heavy: in the early 16th century Lithuanians ravaged it, and a century later it could not bear the financial burden: Emperor Peter the Great obliged it to pay quitrent: this money was required for the construction of St. Petersburg. In the 1720s the monastery was abolished, but was restored two years later, as construction started in it. By 1821 the monastery, with the Vvedensky Cathedral, the bell tower, several small temples and a monastery for hermit monks in its territory became an important center of spiritual life in Russia. Writers and philosophers came here, often after life dramas, to console themselves. In particular, Russian writers Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoevsky used to visit the monastery.In early 1918, the Bolsheviks closed the monastery, although it existed for some time under the guise of an agricultural artel. But later the artel was also closed and the monastery was transformed into a museum. In the 1930s, it turned into a vacation retreat and then into a camp for Polish prisoners of war. The monastery was returned to believers in the 1980s. Now it is completely restored and has new objects in its territory: a Church of the Transfiguration, a chapel and a wooden belfry. People come here for the same reason as 200 years ago: pray at the relics of the Optina Elders, wander in silence along the skete and in the nearby grove and find solace.