Photo: architectural monuments, other places, Tikhonova Pustyn, Kaluga

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Tikhonova Pustyn – a Place of Special Power

Architectural Monuments • Other places

The Tikhonova Pustyn Monastery in the village of Leo Tolstoy is one of the oldest on the Oka River. It is located only 25 kilometers from Kaluga. The monastery was founded by the Kaluga Saint Tikhon Medynsky at the end of the 15th century. The center of the monastery was the Assumption Cathedral burned by Lithuanians, like the whole monastery, in the early XVII century, in the Time of Troubles. The monastery was restored in the same century and gained independence another century later. It reached its heyday in the XIX century.

The influx of pilgrims to Tikhonova Pustyn has never run low: people hurried to the local holy spring, where numerous cases of healing were observed. The oak, in the hollow of which the monastery founder secluded to pray and meditate, was also considered a shrine. Believers always took the particles of the oak with them as shrines. When the oak was destroyed by a thunderstorm, a chapel was built in its place.There were more than 200 novices and 7 temples in the Tikhonova Pustyn by the early 20th century. The most noticeable church was the Cathedral of the Transfiguration which kept the main shrine of the monastery, the relics of its founder Tikhon Medynsky. The cathedral and other buildings of the monastery were destroyed during the first years of Soviet power, and the monastery itself was renamed the "First Soviet Collective Farm after Lenin". Three churches built in the early 20th century have been preserved in the territory of the monastery to this day: the Holy Assumption Church, the Church of St. Nicholas and a chapel in honor of the "Joy of All Who Sorrow" Icon. The monastery began to revive in 1991. A skete and a Cathedral of the Transfiguration were built at the healing spring. Pilgrims are attracted to the monastery by its main shrines, the icons: with the relics of the Elders of the Optina Pustyn, the face of St. Nicholas, Alexander Nevsky, healer Panteleimon and other saints. An important historical exposition dedicated to the Great stand on the Ugra River appeared in one of the premises of the monastery. This event, which occurred in 1480 near the Tikhonova Pustyn, put an end to the Mongol-Tatar Yoke in Russia.

Tikhonova Pustyn – a Place of Special Power

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