Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy

On Ordynka Street, in the Yakimanka district, stands the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy — a convent with stauropegic status, subordinate directly to the Patriarch. Here monastic rule is combined with active service to one’s neighbor: medical care, care for orphans, and support for the needy. The ensemble took shape at the beginning of the last century and unites house churches, hospital buildings, and a cathedral in the Neo-Russian style, which has become a notable monument of the era’s church architecture.

The idea for the convent belonged to Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, widow of the Moscow governor-general who was assassinated by a terrorist in 1905. Once widowed, she withdrew from her former social circle, sold off her jewelry, and used the proceeds to buy a plot on Ordynka with four old houses and a garden. In drawing up the community’s charter, the grand duchess drew on monastic experience; some members of the Holy Synod viewed the idea warily, seeing in it a revival of the order of deaconesses. In February 1909 the convent received its first six sisters, who took vows of chastity and obedience but, unlike nuns, retained the right to leave the community.

The core of the ensemble consisted of rebuilt mid-19th-century estate structures: a two-story building housed the hospital and refectory, with the abbess’s house and an outpatient clinic with a pharmacy nearby. In 1910–1912, the Church of the Intercession was built to a design by Alexei Shchusev — a two-pillar church in the Neo-Russian style with two belfries. The apse, with scenes of the “Intercession of the Mother of God” and the “Liturgy of the Angels,” was painted by Mikhail Nesterov, the burial chamber by Pavel Korin, the sculptural façade decoration was created by Nikifor Tamonkin, and the carved gates were also designed by Shchusev.

The convent operated a free hospital, a pharmacy, an orphanage, and a Sunday school, and its canteen served up to three hundred meals daily to the needy, including residents of the Khitrov Market slum. During the First World War a field hospital of fifty beds was set up here. After 1917 persecution began: in May 1918 Elizabeth Feodorovna was arrested and exiled to the Urals, and on the night of 18 July she, together with nun Varvara Yakovleva, was thrown down a mineshaft near Alapaevsk. In 1926 the convent was liquidated, the sisters were expelled from Moscow, and the cathedral was turned into a club, then a cinema, and later industrial premises.

The house church was returned to believers in 1992, and the Church of the Intercession in 2006. Restoration was completed by 2008: the iconostasis, murals, and stucco moldings were recreated, the garden was landscaped with fountains, and a memorial museum of the foundress was opened in the abbess’s chambers. Since 1990 a sculpture of the foundress, created by Vyacheslav Klykov, has stood in the courtyard. Today the convent runs the “Miloserdiye” (“Mercy”) medical center, a children’s hospice, the “Elizabethan Garden” center for children with cerebral palsy, and a home-care service for the severely ill.

The convent remains an active monastery and a center of social service, continuing the tradition of its foundress, who was canonized by the Church as a holy martyr. The ensemble on Ordynka is a rare Moscow example of the unity of early 20th-century church architecture and charitable infrastructure.