Donskoy Monastery

Donskoy Monastery is a stauropegic male monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church in the south of Moscow, founded in 1591 by Tsar Feodor Ioannovich to commemorate the victory of Russian troops over the army of Crimean Khan Gazi Giray. The monastery was built on the site of a military camp where a field church of Sergius of Radonezh had stood during the siege, and it completed the defensive semicircle of fortress-monasteries on Moscow's southern approaches, which also included the Novospassky, Simonov, Danilov, and Novodevichy monasteries. The monastery was named after the Don Icon of the Mother of God, with which, according to tradition, Saint Sergius of Radonezh blessed Dmitry Donskoy before the Battle of Kulikovo.

The first structure of the monastery was the Old (Small) Cathedral dedicated to the Don Icon, presumably built to a design by the architect Fyodor Kon. The monastery's Great Cathedral was built later, in 1684–1698, in the Naryshkin style, with a seven-tiered carved iconostasis made by craftsmen of the Armoury Chamber. The stone wall with twelve towers was built between 1686 and 1711, and the bell tower above the western gate was erected over more than two decades by three architects — Pietro Trezzini, Dmitry Ukhtomsky, and Alexei Yevlashev. In 1745, by decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the monastery received stauropegic status, meaning it was placed under the direct authority of the Synod, becoming one of six stauropegic monasteries in the Russian Empire. In 1771, during the Plague Riot, Archbishop Ambrosius was torn apart by a mob within the monastery walls, and in 1812 the monastery was looted by Napoleon's cavalry, who had been quartered there.

After 1918 the monastery was formally closed but in fact continued to function; from 1922 to 1925 Patriarch Tikhon was held under arrest in its cells, dying shortly after his release and being buried in the Small Cathedral. In 1929 the monastic community was finally dissolved, and an Anti-Religious Museum of Art was opened on the grounds; from 1934 the monastery became a branch of the Museum of Architecture, where fragments of buildings being demolished throughout Moscow were brought — from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Sukharev Tower, and the dismantled Triumphal Gate. Monastic life was revived in May 1991, and in 1992, during repairs to the Small Cathedral, the relics of Patriarch Tikhon were discovered; he was later canonized as a saint and his relics transferred to a reliquary in the Great Cathedral, where they remain today.