Vyazhishchsky Monastery

The Vyazhishchi Convent of St. Nicholas (Nikolo-Vyazhishchsky Stavropegial Women's Monastery) is an Orthodox convent located in the village of Vyazhishchi, 7 miles (12 km) NNW of Veliky Novgorod. Its surviving buildings date from the period between 1681 and 1708. They are famous for having the richest maiolica decorations in Northwest Russia. The monastery was founded by the monks Efrosiny, Ignaty, and Galaktion and the hieromonk Pimen at the end of the fourteenth century (a charter from 1391 mentions it), with Pimen becoming the first hegumen of the monastery. It was first mentioned in the chronicle in the year 1411. The monastery was patronized by Archbishop Evfimy II (r. 1429–1458), who was hegumen of the monastery before his election as archbishop of Novgorod in 1429, and was buried there (he is known as St. Evfimy of Vyazhishche). His sarcophagus is now in the Church of St. Evfimy of Vyazhishche, built in 1685. The monastery was one of the greatest landowners in the Novgorodian land, holding in the 15th and 16th centuries some 2,000 hectares of land. Much of its lands were confiscated during Catherine II's secularisation reform (1764) at which time it was classified as a 2nd Class Monastery. Following confiscation by the Soviets, the monastery was closed in 1920. It became part of a collective farm and the buildings

Monastery data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).