Monasteries were the cultural centers of the Christian world in the Dark Ages. Monastic communities as part catholic church were quite rich by the standards of that time: they owned significant land, which they rented out to local peasants. Only with monks could people find medical assistance and some protection from both barbarians and secular authorities. In the monasteries, learning and science also found refuge. IN major cities bishops represented ecclesiastical authority, but they always strove more for secular power than for the establishment of Christianity. Monasteries, not bishops, did the main work of spreading the Christian religion during the Dark Ages.

Cities have been familiar with the Christian faith since Roman times. In the 3rd - 5th centuries, Christian communities existed in all major cities of the Western Roman Empire, especially from the moment when the decree of Emperor Constantine raised Christianity to the rank official religion. Things were different in the countryside. The village, conservative by nature, with difficulty abandoned the usual pagan beliefs and from the deities who always helped the peasant in his labors. The raids of the barbarians, from which the peasants suffered first of all, hunger and general disorder awakened at the beginning of the Dark Ages the oldest superstitions against which the official Christian church was often powerless.

At this time, monasteries and holy hermits, leading an emphatically independent way of life, became a beacon and support for the rural inhabitants, who made up the majority of the then population of Western Europe. Where by personal example, where by the power of persuasion and miracles, they planted hope in the souls ordinary people. In the conditions of the complete autocracy of the barbarian rulers, in an era of inhuman cruelties, monasteries turned out to be the only refuge of order. Strictly speaking, the reason for the rise of the Catholic Church, the reason why the Church began to assume the role of a secular ruler, should be sought precisely in the history of the Dark Ages.

At a time when kings enjoyed absolute power in their lands and even violated the laws of their ancestors, committing robbery and murder, christian religion turned out to be the only law, at least in some way independent of royal arbitrariness. In the cities, bishops (primarily those who were appointed by the church rather than bought the bishop's chair for money) sought to limit the arbitrariness of secular authorities, entering into direct confrontation with the rulers. However, behind the back of the king or his vassal, most often there was a military force that the bishop did not have. The history of the Dark Ages knows many examples of how kings and dukes brutally tortured recalcitrant church rulers, subjecting them to such tortures, next to which the mockery of the Romans over the Christians of the first centuries fades. One Frankish majordomo gouged out the eyes of a bishop in his city, forced him to walk on broken glass for several days, and then executed him.

Only the monasteries maintained relative independence from the secular authorities. Monks who declared their renunciation of worldly life did not pose a clear threat to the rulers, and therefore they were most often left alone. So in the Dark Ages, monasteries were islands of relative peace in the midst of a sea of ​​human suffering. Very many of those who entered the monastery during the Dark Ages did so only in order to survive.

Independence from the world meant for the monks the need to independently produce everything they needed. The monastic economy developed under the protection of double walls - those that protected the possessions of the monastery, and those that were erected by faith. Even during the barbarian invasions, the conquerors rarely dared to touch the monasteries, fearing to quarrel with an unknown god. This respectful attitude continued later. So the outbuildings of the monastery - a barnyard, vegetable gardens, a stable, a smithy and other workshops - sometimes turned out to be the only ones in the whole district.

The spiritual power of the monastery was based on economic power. Only monks in the Dark Ages stocked food for a rainy day, only monks always had everything needed to make and repair meager agricultural implements. Mills, which spread to Europe only after the tenth century, also first appeared in monasteries. But even before the monastic farms grew to the size of large feudal estates, the communities were engaged in charity out of a sacred duty. Helping the needy was one of the primary items in the charter of any monastic community in the Dark Ages. This assistance was expressed both in the distribution of bread to the surrounding peasants in a famine year, and in the treatment of the sick, and in the organization of hospices. The monks preached among the semi-pagan local population Christian faith– but they preached by deeds as much as by words.

The monasteries were the custodians of knowledge - those grains of it that survived the fire of barbarian invasions and the formation of new kingdoms. Behind the monastery walls could find shelter educated people whose erudition no one else needed. Thanks to the monastic scribes, a part of the handwritten works from the Roman period has been preserved. True, this was taken seriously only towards the end of the Dark Ages, when Charlemagne ordered to collect old books throughout the Frankish Empire and rewrite them. The collection of ancient manuscripts was also carried out by Irish monks who traveled throughout Europe.

Teacher and student
Obviously, only a small part of the ancient manuscripts that were once kept in monasteries reached the researchers of later centuries. The reason for this is the scribes themselves.

Parchment, which has been written on since ancient times, was expensive, and very little was produced during the Dark Ages. So, when a scribe who had fallen into disrepair appeared before one of the church fathers, he often took a well-preserved parchment with a "pagan" text and mercilessly scraped a poem or a philosophical treatise from the parchment in order to write down in its place a more valuable one, from his point of view. view, text. On some of these transcribed parchments, poorly scraped lines in Classical Latin can still be seen showing through the later text. Unfortunately, it is completely impossible to restore such erased works.

The monastic community in the Dark Ages provided the model for Christian society as it should have been. Inside the monastery walls there was no "neither Greek nor Jew" - all the monks were brothers to each other. There was no division into "clean" and "impure" occupations - each brother was engaged in what he had an inclination for, or in what was defined as obedience to him. The renunciation of the joys of the flesh and worldly life fully corresponded to the mindset of the entire Christian world: one should have expected the second coming of Christ and Doomsday where each will be rewarded according to his merit.

On the other hand, the closed monastic world was a reduced copy of Christian Europe, which deliberately limited contacts with the outside world, costing Everyday life the few that could be produced or grown on their own. The founders of the monastic communities sought to limit the contacts of the monks with the laity in order to protect the brothers from temptations - and the entire Christian world tried to communicate as little as possible with the "pagans", to draw as little as possible from the treasury of foreign knowledge and culture (it does not matter, Roman or Islamic world).

The central place in the medieval monastery was occupied by the church, around which there were household and residential buildings. There was a common refectory(dining room), bedroom of monks, library, storage of books and manuscripts. A hospital was usually located in the eastern part of the monastery, and rooms for guests and pilgrims were located in the north. Any traveler could apply here for shelter, the charter of the monastery obliged to accept him. In the western and southern parts of the monastery there were barns, stables, a barn and a poultry yard.

The monks were not supposed to leave the threshold of the monastery. Communication with the outside world was undesirable for them, because it distracted from thoughts about the salvation of the soul. Therefore, the monastery lived a closed life, far from habitable places. Everything necessary for the existence of the monastery was within its boundaries. Often the monasteries were surrounded by a fence to protect them from wild animals. To manage the monastery, the monks chose the most learned and respected person from their number, he became abbot(father) of the monastery. material from the site

medieval monastery

Monk - copyist of books

On this page, material on the topics:

1. Introduction
2. The inhabitants of the monastery
3. Time and discipline
4. Architecture

Christian monasticism originated in the Egyptian and Syrian deserts. In the III century, some believers, in order to hide from the world with its temptations and devote themselves entirely to prayer, began to leave pagan cities for deserted places. The first monks who practiced extreme austerity lived either alone or with several students. In the 4th century, one of them, Pachomius from the Egyptian city of Thebes, founded the first cenobitic (coenobitic) monastery and wrote a charter that described how monks should live and pray.

In the same century, monasteries began to appear in the west of the Roman world - in Gaul and Italy. After 361, the former Roman soldier Martin founded a community of hermits near Poitiers, and after 371, the monastery of Marmoutier near Tours. Around the year 410, Saint Honoratus of Arles built the Lérins Abbey on one of the islands in the Gulf of Cannes, and Saint John Cassian around the year 415 created the monastery of Saint-Victor in Marseilles. Later, thanks to the efforts of St. Patrick and his followers, a very severe and ascetic tradition of monasticism appeared in Ireland.

Unlike hermits, the monks of cenobitic monasteries united under the authority of an abbot and lived according to a charter created by one of the fathers. In the Eastern and Western Christian world, there were many monastic rules Pachomius the Great, Basil the Great, Augustine of Hippo, Columban and others., but the most influential was the charter drawn up around 530 by Benedict of Nursia for the abbey of Montecassino, which he founded between Naples and Rome.

Page of the charter of Benedict of Nursia. 1495 Biblioteca Europea di Informazione e Cultura

Benedict did not demand radical asceticism and constant battle with his own flesh from his monks, as in many Egyptian or Irish monasteries. His charter was sustained in the spirit of moderation and was intended rather for "beginners". The brothers had to unquestioningly obey the abbot and not leave the walls of the monastery (unlike the Irish monks, who actively wandered).

His charter formulated the ideal of monastic life and described how to organize it. In the Benedictine monasteries, time was distributed between worship, solitary prayer, soul-saving reading, and physical labor. However, in different abbeys, this was done in completely different ways, and the principles formulated in the charter always needed to be clarified and adapted to local realities - the way of life of monks in southern Italy and in northern England could not but differ.

Benedict of Nursia conveys his charter to Saint Maurus and other monks of his order. Miniature from a French manuscript. 1129 Wikimedia Commons

Gradually, from a radical choice for a few ascetics, ready for abstinence, poverty and obedience, monasticism turned into a mass institution closely connected with the world. Even a moderate ideal began to be forgotten more and more often, and morals began to become loose. Therefore, the history of monasticism is full of calls for reform, which was supposed to return the monks to their original austerity. As a result of such reforms, "sub-families" arose in the Benedictine "family" - congregations of monasteries, reformed from one center and often subordinate to the "mother" abbey.

Cluniacs

The most influential of these "sub-families" was the Cluniac Order. The abbey of Cluny was founded in 910 in Burgundy: the monks from there were invited to reform other monasteries, they founded new monasteries, and as a result, by the 11th-12th centuries, a huge network arose that covered not only France, but also England, Spain, Germany and other lands. The Cluniacs achieved immunity from interference in their affairs by secular authorities and local bishops: the order was accountable only to Rome. Although the rule of Saint Benedict ordered the brothers to work and cultivate their own lands, this principle was forgotten in Cluny. Thanks to the flow of donations (including the fact that the Cluniacs tirelessly served funeral masses for their benefactors), the order turned into the largest landowner. The monasteries received taxes and food from the peasants who cultivated the land. Now, for monks of noble blood, physical labor was considered shameful and distracting from the main task - worship (on ordinary days it took seven hours, and even more on holidays).

Cistercians

The secularization that triumphed among the Cluniacs and in other congenial monasteries reawakened dreams of a return to the original severity. In 1098, the abbot of the Burgundian monastery of Molem named Robert, having despaired of leading the brothers to strictness, left with 20 monks and founded the abbey of Sieto. It became the core of the new, Cistercian (from Cistercium- the Latin name of Sieve) of the order, and soon hundreds of "daughter" abbeys appeared in Europe. The Cistercians (unlike the Bene-Dictines) wore not black, but white (from undyed wool) robes - therefore they began to be called "white monks". They also followed the rule of St. Benedict, but they tried to follow it literally in order to return to their original severity. To do this, it was necessary to retire to distant "deserts", shorten the duration of worship services and devote more time to work.

Hermits and Knight Monks

In addition to the “classical” Benedictines, there were monastic communities in the West that lived according to different charters or kept the charter of St. Benedict, but applied it in a fundamentally different way - for example, hermits who practiced extreme asceticism in small communities, such as Camaldules (their order was founded by St. Romuald), the Carthusians (followers of St. Bruno) or the Grandmontens (students of St. Stephen of Muret).

Further, at the intersection of the nave with the transept, there were choirs (E). There, the monks gathered for the services of the hours and for masses. In the choirs, opposite each other, there were two rows of benches or chairs in parallel. English stalls, fr. stalles.. In the late Middle Ages, reclining seats were most often made in them, so that the monks during tedious services could either sit or stand, leaning on small consoles - misericords. Let's remember the French word misericorde("compassion", "mercy") - such shelves, indeed, were a mercy for tired or infirm brothers..

Benches were placed behind the choir. (F) where, during the service, the sick brothers, temporarily separated from the healthy ones, as well as novices, were located. Next came the barrier English rood screen, fr. jube. on which a large crucifix was placed (G). In parish churches, cathedrals and monastery churches, where pilgrims were admitted, it separated the choir and presbytery, where worship was held and the clergy were located, from the nave, where the laity had access. The laity could not go beyond this border and in fact did not see the priest, who, in addition, stood with his back to them. In modern times, most of these partitions were demolished, so when we enter some kind of medieval temple, we need to imagine that earlier its space was not at all uniform and accessible to everyone.

In Cistercian churches in the nave there could be a choir for converse (H) worldly brothers. From their cloister they entered the temple through a special entrance (I). It was located near the western portal (J) through which the laity could enter the church.

2. Cloister

A quadrangular (more rarely, polygonal or even round) gallery, which adjoined the church from the south and connected the main monastic buildings together. A garden was often laid out in the center. In the monastic tradition, the cloister was likened to Eden surrounded by a wall, Noah's ark, where the family of the righteous man was saved from the waters sent to sinners as punishment, Solomon's temple or Heavenly Jerusalem. The name of the galleries comes from the Latin claustrum- "enclosed, enclosed space." Therefore, in the Middle Ages, both the central courtyard and the entire monastery could be called that.

The cloister served as the center of monastic life: along its galleries, the monks moved from the bedroom to the church, from the church to the refectory, and from the refectory, for example, to the scriptorium. There was a well and a place for washing - lavatorium .

Solemn processions were also held in the cloister: for example, in Cluny every Sunday between the third hour and the main mass, the brothers, led by one of the priests, marched through the monastery, sprinkling all the rooms with holy water.

In many Benedictine monasteries, such as the abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos (Spain) or Saint-Pierre-de-Moissac (France), many scenes from the Bible, the lives of saints were carved on the capitals of the columns on which the galleries rested. , allegorical images (as a confrontation between vices and virtues), as well as frightening figures of demons and various monsters, animals intertwined with each other, etc. The Cistercians, who sought to get away from excessive luxury and any images that could distract the monks from prayer and contemplation, banished such decor from their monasteries.

3. Washbasin

IN Clean Thursday on Holy Week- in memory of how Christ washed the feet of his disciples before the Last Supper In. 13:5-11.- the monks, led by the abbot, there humbly washed and kissed the feet of the poor, who were brought to the monastery.

In the gallery that adjoined the church, every day before Compline, the brethren gathered to listen to the reading of some pious text - collatio This name arose from the fact that Saint Benedict recommended for this "Conversation" ("Collationes") John Cassian (about 360 - about 435) - an ascetic who was one of the first to transfer the principles of monastic life from Egypt to the West. Then with a word collatio began to be called a snack or a glass of wine, which in fast days gave out to monks at this evening hour (hence the French word collation- "snack", "light dinner")..

4. Sacristy

A room in which liturgical vessels, liturgical vestments and books were kept under the castle (if the monastery did not have a special treasury, then relics), as well as the most important documents: historical chronicles and collections of charters, which listed purchases, donations and other acts on which the material well-being of the monastery depended.

5. Library

There was a library next to the sacristy. In small communities, it looked more like a closet with books, in huge abbeys it looked like a majestic vault in which the characters of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose are looking for the forbidden volume of Aristotle.

What the monks read at different times and in different parts of Europe, we can imagine thanks to the inventories of medieval monastic libraries. These are lists of the Bible or individual biblical books, commentaries on them, liturgical manuscripts, writings of the Church Fathers and authoritative theologians. Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome of Stridon, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville and others., lives of saints, collections of miracles, historical chronicles, treatises on canon law, geography, astronomy, medicine, botany, Latin grammars, works of ancient Greek and ancient Roman authors ... It is well known that many ancient texts have come down to of our days only because, despite their suspicious attitude towards pagan wisdom, they were preserved by medieval monks In Carolingian times, the richest monasteries - such as St. Gallen and Lorsch in the German lands or Bobbio in Italy - possessed 400-600 volumes. The catalog of the library of the monastery of Saint-Riquier in the north of France, compiled in 831, consisted of 243 volumes. A chronicle written in the twelfth century at the monastery of Saint-Pierre-le-Vief in Sens gives a list of manuscripts ordered to be rewritten or restored by the abbe Arnaud. In addition to biblical and liturgical books, it included commentaries and theological writings by Origen, Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great, the passion of the martyr Tiburtius, a description of the transfer of the relics of St. Benedict to the monastery of Fleury, the History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon, etc..

In many monasteries, the library functioned as scriptoria, where the brothers copied and decorated new books. Until the 13th century, when workshops for lay scribes began to multiply in cities, monasteries remained the main producers of books, and monks their main readers.

6. Chapter Hall

The administrative and disciplinary center of the monastery. It was there that every morning (after the service of the first hour in summer; after the third hour and morning mass in winter) the monks gathered to read one of the chapters ( capitulum) of the Benedictine Rule. Hence the name of the hall. In addition to the charter, they read out a fragment from the martyrology (a list of saints whose memory was celebrated on each day) and an obituary (a list of the deceased brothers, patrons of the monastery and members of his “family”, for whom the monks should offer prayers on this day).

In the same hall, the abbot instructed the brethren and sometimes consulted with selected monks. There, the novices who passed the probationary period again asked to be tonsured as monks. There the abbot received the mighty of this world and resolved conflicts between the monastery and church authorities or secular lords. The “accusatory chapter” also took place there - after reading the charter, the abbot said: “If someone has something to say, let him speak.” And then those monks who knew for someone or for themselves some kind of violation (for example, they were late for the service or left the found thing with them for at least one day), they had to confess to the rest of the brethren in it and suffer the punishment, which appointed by the pastor.

The frescoes that adorned the capitular halls of many Benedictine abbeys reflected their disciplinary vocation. For example, in the St. Emmeram Monastery in Regensburg, paintings were made on the theme of the “angelic life” of monks struggling with temptations, following the model of St. Benedict, their father and legislator. In the monastery of Saint-Georges-de-Bocherville in Normandy, on the arches of the capitular hall, images of corporal punishment were carved, to which the guilty monks were sentenced.

7. Room for conversations

The Rule of St. Benedict ordered the brethren to remain silent most of the time. Silence was considered the mother of virtues, and a closed mouth was considered “a condition for the rest of the heart.” The collections of the customs of various monasteries sharply limited those places and moments of the day when the brothers could communicate with each other, and the lives described the heavy punishments that fall on the heads of the talkers. In some abbeys, a distinction was made between "great silence" (when it is forbidden to speak at all) and "little silence" (when one could speak in an undertone). In separate rooms - churches, dormitories, a refectory, etc. - idle conversations were completely prohibited. After Compline, there was to be absolute silence in the entire monastery.

In case of emergency, it was possible to talk in special rooms ( auditorium). In Cistercian monasteries there could be two of them: one for the prior and monks (next to the chapter hall), the second, primarily for the cellar and convers (between their refectory and kitchen).

To facilitate communication, some abbeys developed special sign languages ​​that made it possible to transmit the simplest messages without formally violating the charter. Such gestures did not mean sounds or syllables, but whole words: the names of various premises, everyday objects, elements of worship, liturgical books, etc. Lists of such signs were preserved in many monasteries. For example, in Cluny there were 35 gestures for describing food, 22 for clothing, 20 for worship, etc. To “say” the word “bread”, one had to make a circle with two little fingers and two forefingers, so how bread was usually baked round. In different abbeys, the gestures were completely different, and the gesticulating monks of Cluny and Hirsau would not have understood each other.

8. Bedroom, or dormitorium

Most often, this room was located on the second floor, above the chapter hall or next to it, and it was possible to get into it not only from the cloister, but also through the passage from the church. The 22nd chapter of the Benedictine charter prescribed that each monk should sleep on a separate bed, preferably in the same room:

«<…>... but if their numbers do not allow this to be arranged, let them sleep by ten or twenty, with the elders, on whom lies the care of them. Let the lamp in the bedroom burn until morning.
They should sleep in their clothes, girded with belts or ropes. When they sleep, let them not have their little knives with which they work, cut off branches and the like, so as not to injure themselves during sleep. The monks should always be ready and, as soon as the sign is given, get up without delay, hasten, preempting one another, to the work of God, decorously, but modestly. The youngest brethren should not have beds next to each other, but let them be mixed with the elders. Standing up for the cause of God, let them fraternally encourage each other, dispelling the excuses invented by the drowsy.

Benedict of Nursia instructed that the monk should sleep on a simple mat, covered with a blanket. However, his charter was intended for a monastery located in southern Italy. In the northern lands - say, in Germany or Scandinavia - the observance of this directive required much greater (often almost impossible) selflessness and contempt for the flesh. In various monasteries and orders, depending on their severity, different measures of comfort were allowed. For example, Franciscans were required to sleep on bare ground or planks, and mats were only allowed for those who were physically weak.

9. Warm room, or calefactorium

Since almost all the premises of the monastery were not heated, a special warm room was arranged in the northern lands, where the fire was maintained. There the monks could warm up a little, melt the frozen ink or wax their shoes.

10. Refectory, or refectorium

In large monasteries, the refectories, which were supposed to accommodate the entire brethren, were very impressive. For example, in the Parisian abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the refectory was 40 meters long and 20 meters wide. Long tables with benches were placed in the shape of the letter "P", and all the brethren were seated behind them in order of seniority - just like in the choir of the church.

In the Benedictine monasteries, where, unlike the Cistercian ones, there were many cult and didactic images, frescoes depicting the Last Supper were often painted in the refectories. The monks had to identify themselves with the apostles gathered around Christ.

11. Kitchen

The Cistercian diet was mostly vegetarian, with the addition of fish. There were no special cooks - the brothers worked in the kitchen for a week, on Saturday evening the crew on duty gave way to the next one.

For most of the year, the monks received only one meal a day, in the late afternoon. From mid-September until Lent (beginning around mid-February), they could eat for the first time after the ninth hour, and in Lent after supper. Only after Easter did the monks get the right to have another meal around noon.

Most often, the monastic dinner consisted of beans (beans, lentils, etc.), designed to satisfy hunger, after which they served the main course, which included fish or eggs and cheese. On Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, each usually received a whole portion, and on the days of fasting, Monday, Wednesday and Friday - one portion for two.

In addition, in order to support the strength of the monks, every day they were given a serving of bread and a glass of wine or beer.

12. Refectory for converse

In the Cistercian monasteries, lay brothers were separated from full-fledged monks: they had their own dormitory, their own refectory, their own entrance to the church, etc.

13. Entrance to the monastery

The Cistercians strove to build their abbeys as far as possible from towns and villages in order to overcome the secularization in which the “black monks”, primarily the Cluneans, had been mired in the centuries since the time of St. Benedict. Nevertheless, the “white monks” also could not completely fence themselves off from the world. Lay people came to them, members of the monastic "family", connected with the brothers by ties of kinship or who decided to serve the monastery. The gatekeeper, who watched over the entrance to the monastery, periodically welcomed the poor, who were given bread and leftover food that the brothers had not eaten.

14. Hospital

In large monasteries, a hospital has always been set up - with a chapel, a refectory, and sometimes with its own kitchen. Unlike healthy counterparts, patients could count on increased nutrition and other benefits: for example, they were allowed to exchange a few words during meals and not attend all the long worship services.

All the brothers periodically went to the hospital, where they were bloodletted ( minutio) is a procedure that is even necessary to maintain the correct balance of humors (blood, mucus, black bile and yellow bile) in the body. After this procedure, the weakened monks received temporary relief for several days in order to restore their strength: exemption from the all-night service, evening rations and a glass of wine, and sometimes delicacies like fried chicken or goose.

15. Other buildings

In addition to the church, the cloister and the main buildings where the life of monks, novices and converse passed, the monasteries had many other buildings: the personal apartments of the abbot; a hospice for poor wanderers and a hotel for important guests; various outbuildings: barns, cellars, mills and bakeries; stables, dovecotes, etc. Medieval monks were engaged in many crafts (made wine, brewed beer, tanned leather, processed metals, worked on glass, produced tiles and bricks) and actively mastered natural resources: they uprooted and felled forests, mined stone , coal, iron and peat, mastered salt mines, erected water mills on rivers, etc. As they would say today, monasteries were one of the main centers of technical innovation.

Sources

• Duby J. Cathedral time. Art and Society, 980–1420.

  M., 2002. Prou ​​M. (ed.). Paris, 1886.

Tatyana Solomatina

Rock Monasteries of Southeast Europe

Hello dear readers! Have you ever seen a monastery in a rock? Believe me, you will definitely enjoy a trip to such places. The feeling of unreality and spiritual uplift accompany all tourists already on the way to the Shrines.

Read about the most ancient rock monasteries in Southeast Europe. Perhaps someone would like to see them with their own eyes.

The rock monasteries of Europe use natural mountain formations in an unusual way. Their design uses caves and cavities in the rocky slopes of the mountains, created by erosion or made by human hands. The austere interior was ideally suited and served as stone cells for the reclusive life of the monks. Southeast Europe is extremely rich in such monasteries.

In some monastic complexes, the grottoes were converted into chapels, while in others, luxurious temples were built near the caves inhabited by monks. The inner walls of the monasteries in the rock are covered with colorful frescoes, originally from the Middle Ages. They represent the most common scenes from the life of Christ, Saints or portraits of the founders of monasteries. This type of work can be seen, among others, in the complex of temples in Ivanovo (Bulgaria).

Monasteries and churches varying degrees preserved in Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Georgia. Each of them is interesting object religious architecture that attracts many tourists. Which of them ended up on the list of the most beautiful and most important rock monasteries in Europe? Perhaps they will become interesting idea for the next vacation.

Montenegro: Ostrog Monastery

The monastery "Ostrog" in the rock is the most visited, as well as one of the largest attractions in Montenegro. The monastery was built and founded in the 17th century by St. Vasily Ostrozhsky. It is located in the Zeta Valley and is divided into the Lower part, located about an hour away, and the Upper part, in which the church itself is located.

Pilgrims and tourists come here not only because of the magnificent interior of the monastery and breathtaking scenery, but also because of the relics of the founder, which are considered miraculous.

Official site: http://manastirostrog.com/

81400 Niksic
PO Box 16
+382 68330336

Türkiye: Panagia Sumela Monastery

Panagia Sumela is the Orthodox monastery of St. Virgin Mary. It is located in the Trabzon region and is located at an altitude of 1200 meters above sea level on the slope of Mount Mela. Sumela consists of a series of rooms and chapels located in a huge cave in the rock. They are protected from the outside world by a high-rise building built in the 18th century, which contains more modern monastic cells and guest rooms.

Official website: http://www.muze.gov.tr/en

AltIndere Mahallesi, AltIndere Vadisi

61750 Macka/Trabzon

Georgia: David Gareji Monastery Complex

The complex of Georgian monasteries Orthodox Church is located in the southeastern part of Georgia, 30 km from Tbilisi, on the border with Azerbaijan. It consists of 19 medieval monasteries with 5,000 cells for monks. The oldest monastery is the Lavra, founded by the Christian monk David Gareji. You can visit the cave in the rock where he lived, and the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, where the tomb of the founder is now located.

The David Gareji monastery complex is also famous for its frescoes of the 13th century. The oldest of them is located in the main chapel of the Udabno monastery.

David Gareji Monastery, Rustavi-Jandara 12th km.

Georgia: Vardzia Monastery Complex

Vardzia is not just a monastery in the rock, but a whole rock city. Its location on a hillside made it invisible to enemies. The city, built in the 12th century by Queen Tamara, is now the main attraction of the Javakheti region.

The monastery complex itself consists of over 250 rooms on 13 levels. Having visited the rock monastery, one should not lose sight of the Church of the Assumption, which is best preserved in it. Its walls are covered with 12th-century frescoes depicting scenes from the New Testament and portraits of Queen Tamara. From the church, a dark tunnel leads to a spring called Tamara's Tears. To explore the tunnels of the monastery, you need to take a flashlight with you.

Türkiye: Selime Monastery in Cappadocia

Selime Monastery is located in the Ihlara Valley in southern Cappadocia. Carved into the rock by monks in the 12th century, it houses a cathedral-sized church. Inside the church there are two rows of columns that divide the entire space into three parts. The monastery is open to the public: you can walk along its mysterious passages and corridors. From the holes in the rock, tourists observe an unusually beautiful panorama of the Ihlara valley. The surrounding landscapes are reminiscent of scenes from " Star Wars».

Bulgaria: Cave churches in Ivanovo

The complex in Ivanovo is a group of churches, chapels and monasteries in the rock. He gained his fame thanks to the icons of the 13th century. The best preserved temple Mother of God with frescoes depicting the Passion of Christ. The first buildings in the monastery complex date back to the 12th century. In the Middle Ages, it included more than 40 monasteries and 200 utility rooms. They were inhabited by monks until the 17th century. Today the monastery complex in Ivanovo is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Official page: http://www.museumruse.com/expositions/ivanovo_bg.htm

7088 Ivanovo, Bulgaria
+359 82 825 002

Bulgaria: Aladzha Monastery Complex

Aladzha is a complex of rock buildings. It is located just 3 km from the popular resort of Golden Sands and includes two churches, chapels, crypts, and numerous outbuildings: kitchens, cells and a cattle shed. Two levels of rooms are carved into the 40-meter rock and connected by an external staircase. The entrance to the complex costs 5 lev, for this money you can visit the nearby catacombs and an exhibition dedicated to archaeological finds around the monastery.

Complex page: http://www.bulgariamonasteries.com/aladja_manastir.html

Golden Sands Reserve, Varna, Bulgaria
+359 52 355 460

Bulgaria: Basarbovsky Monastery

One of the few monasteries in Bulgaria that has been completely restored. The Basarbovsky Monastery is located in the valley of the Rusenki Lom River, 10 km from the city of Ruse. In the complex you can see a church with a beautiful icon of the patron saint of the monastery, numerous cells in the rock and utility rooms. Next to it is a complex of churches in Ivanovo.

Moldova: Old Orhei Monastery

Moldova is a small but still little known and mysterious country between Ukraine and Romania. The Reut River in the village of Old Orhei creates a picturesque canyon. On a hill overlooking the valley, there is a church with a blue dome. A tunnel is laid from it, which leads to an underground monastery in the rock. In addition, unusual beautiful monastery in Old Orhei, it is worth visiting the beautiful waterfalls, the way to which only the locals know.

Ukraine: Pechersk Lavra in Kyiv

Pechersk Lavra also known as Caves monastery- This is a huge complex of Orthodox monasteries located on the Dnieper. It consists of more than 80 buildings: secular and spiritual. The golden domes create a dreamlike atmosphere and make the river valley sparkle. Many of the buildings have an underground network of corridors and caves that were inhabited by monks as early as the 11th century, and some of them have been converted into chapels and temples.

Official website: https://lavra.ua/

Kyiv, Ukraine, 01015, Lavrska street, 15

380 44 255 1105

Crimea: Inkerman cave monastery

Inkerman cave monastery belongs to a group of Orthodox monasteries located near the city of Inkerman in the western Crimea. The first hermit caves here date back to the 10th century, there were about two hundred of them then. In the 19th century they were adapted to monastery. Now tourists can visit the rock chapel, the Church of the Holy Trinity, the monastery of St. Clement at the Monastery Rock.

Sevastopol, 3rd Bastionnaya st., 25,

Crimea: Assumption Monastery

It is also known as the Monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It was founded in the 8th century, pilgrims were attracted by the icon of the Mother of God located here. For a long time, the Assumption Monastery was the center of Orthodoxy in the Crimea. In the 19th century, a number of churches were built and new caves were created in the rock. Currently, tourists can only visit half of the monastery. In the second part there is a monastery, the cells of which are closed to the layman.

Crimea, Bakhchisarai, st. Mariampol, 1

Rock monasteries are two in one: the call Orthodox soul and the music of architecture, frozen in stone. Whether it is the creation of human hands, or natural forces, caves and grottoes have become an excellent "host" for monastic complexes. Although not all of them are active, and not all of them have been preserved in their original form, but they are worth seeing, if only because they are magnificent! In addition to architectural beauty, they give us religious relics of distant centuries: beautiful frescoes and icons.

Perhaps you managed to visit some monastery in the rock? Share your impressions in the section "Journeys of readers". How to do it, wrote. There is an article on the blog, if you are interested in rock monasteries, then the information will be useful to you.

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On this I say goodbye to you, until we meet again!
Tatyana Solomatina

It was founded in 613 by St. Gall, an Irish student of St. Columban. Karl Martell appointed Othmar as abbot, who founded an influential art school in the monastery. Manuscripts made and illustrated by St. Gallen monks (many of whom were originally from Britain and Ireland) were highly valued throughout Europe.
Under Abbot Waldo of Reichenau (740-814), a monastery library was founded, one of the richest in Europe; during the invasion of the Hungarians in 924-933. the books were taken to Reichenau. At the request of Charlemagne, Pope Adrian I sent the best singers to St. Gallen, who taught the monks the technique of Gregorian chant.

In 1006, the brethren registered the outbreak of supernova SN 1006.

Starting from the X century, the monastery "" St. Galla entered into political rivalry with the monastery in Reichenau. By the 13th century, the abbots of St. Gallen not only won this confrontation, but also achieved recognition as independent sovereigns within the Holy Roman Empire. In subsequent years, cultural and political significance the monastery steadily declined, until in 1712 the Swiss militia entered St. Gallen, who took with them a significant part of the monastery treasures. In 1755-1768. the medieval buildings of the abbey were demolished and grandiose temples in the Baroque style grew in their place.

Despite the losses, the monastery library of medieval manuscripts now has 160 thousand items and is still reputed to be one of the most complete in Europe. One of the most curious exhibits is the Plan of St. Gall, drawn up in the beginning. 9th century and representing an idealized picture of a medieval monastery (this is the only architectural plan that has survived from the early Middle Ages).