Indigenous deserts in the Kursk region: the history of a miracle. Kursk Root Hermitage - nastya_sarma — LiveJournal Kursk Root Hermitage Father Nikita
While in the Korennaya Hermitage monastery, forty kilometers from Kursk, I heard about the healing of cancer patients by bathing in holy springs and drinking water from them. And on the territory of the Root Hermitage Monastery there are more than sixteen of them. Here there is also a source in which Seraphim Sorovsky was healed, there is a source of “Panteleimon the healer”. All sixteen holy springs flow into the river, the waters of which, flowing through protected areas, are also considered healing.
During one of my visits to the Root Desert on an early spring morning, I was lucky enough to observe the epiphany of a blind girl while bathing at the “Eye Spring”. Even several years after this miracle happened, I hear in my ears the cry of the unfortunate girl who was washing her eyes in the holy spring: “Mom, look, the Mother of God is in front of me!” - and a minute later: “Mom, mom, I see the light.” Everyone watching this scene got goosebumps, and the women began to shed tears of tenderness and joy.
The remarkable church writer Sergei Nilus wrote about ablutions in the spring of St. Seraphim of Sarov: “Without giving myself time to cool down, all as I was, heated by fast walking and scorching heat, I undressed, sank under the tap, from which the icy water of the spring flowed in a silvery stream, and crossed myself: “I believe, Lord,” and he let this water pour over himself and his sick members three times.
The first moment I was completely suffocated: the icy water burned me - it took my breath away. But what a wonderful feeling came when leaving the bath! It was as if a new stream of new life was poured into all my veins - distant youth seemed to return again... I simply rejoiced and loved Father Seraphim, as they love a doctor who manages to instantly quench an unbearable, burning pain the minute this pain stops . This fiery love with which my heart suddenly caught fire, this joy of love by faith, were they not my final spiritual recovery, which is without any comparison more important than any physical healing?
And here is a case published in the Tver Diocesan Gazette in April 1885. The priest of the city of Murom, St. Nicholas Church of the Transfiguration, Ioann Chizhov, writes about it.
“I would like to describe a wonderful incident that happened to one of my spiritual sons, the Murom merchant Ivan Ivanovich Zasukhin in 1882. He developed tumors behind his ears and in his right groin. The tumor in the groin was cut through. At first she slept, and then she began to grow stronger. The invited doctors recognized the patient's situation as hopeless and even determined the day of his death.
The patient began to prepare for death. As a true Christian, he heartily confessed and was honored with Holy Communion. With true contrition of heart that the life of a still young man, leaving behind a wife and five children, ends so early, I began to read the prayers of departure. Having finished my prayers and blessed him, I no longer had hope for a successful outcome for the patient. But on the third day I heard that the patient felt better. The wife said that their neighbor M.F. Bychkova, out of pity for the dying man, suggested a new medicine, but not human, but Divine. As soon as I left after reading the waste card, she brought water taken from the source of Father Seraphim. The patient could not open his mouth. She poured a few drops into his mouth from a teaspoon and poured the rest of the water on his head. The patient no longer took food - everything was thrown out. After the water was poured into him, he calmed down and fell asleep. A few hours later he woke up and asked for a drink. His wife, confused, gave him milk, which was forbidden to him. The patient drank and his stomach accepted the milk. Then he began to walk. Doctors suggested repeating the operation in the groin. But he decided to go to the Sarov Hermitage. The doctors held me back because the road was long and bumpy. But he was persistent. The wife, heeding the words of the doctors, took with her everything necessary for burial. They also took the children so that they could say goodbye to their father.
We arrived on the eve of the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and the patient wished to be in Church for the all-night vigil. He was carried on a stretcher from the hotel to the Church and carried into it almost by hand.
After the service, the patient on crutches, with the help of his wife, came up to venerate the icon of the holiday and receive anointing with holy oil. “When I venerated the icon and received the anointing, my eyes involuntarily turned to the holy icon of the Mother of God standing in the iconostasis, which had previously been in the cell of Elder Seraphim, and at that moment I felt that my sore leg stood firmly on the floor and without pain for me. Not remembering what I was doing, I raised my crutches and, without their help, to the surprise of everyone present, I went to my place. When the service ended, I boldly stood up and left the Church, where my servants were waiting for me with a stretcher; but I didn’t need their help, I even gave up my crutches and walked all the way to the hotel (a distance of about a quarter of a mile) without any help.”
The next morning after the service, the patient hurried to the source. Feeling the cold stream of the spring on me, I noticed that this cold stream aroused some kind of relieving heat in the body, and I had more strength.
“I lived in this monastery for several days, in tearful prayers thanking God for His wondrous help, through His Saint Seraphim.”
Currently the patient is healthy. To this day he does not use medications.”
Fortunately, the healing springs have not been destroyed. As before, they carry their life-giving powers in Sarov and Diveyevo, in the Holy Trinity Sergeyev Lavra and the Optina and Korennaya hermitages. And throughout Mother Rus'.
I continue the story about the press tour to Kursk, organized by the Travel-Russia community and the Administration of the Kursk Region.
In the village of Svoboda, a five-minute walk from the Command Post of General K.K. Rokossovsky, from where he exercised command of the Central Front in the defensive and then in the counter-offensive battle carried out on, is located the Kursk Root Nativity of the Mother of God Hermitage - a men's monastery founded on the site of the appearance of the Kursk Root Icon. The monastery was founded in 1615, but the history of its origin goes back to the 13th century.
Kursk Root Icon “The Sign”
The story of the icon, which our guide Alexander told us about, is mysterious; it cannot be called anything other than a miracle.
According to legend, an icon was found in this place, called the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God “The Sign”. On September 8, 1295, two hunters wandering near Kursk, burned by the Tatars, discovered it in the roots of trees. Apparently, that’s why its name contains the word “indigenous”. And when one of them picked her up to examine her, a spring began to flow in the place where she lay.
A monument is dedicated to this event,
installed just opposite the main entrance to the monastery.
Soon the hunters and their comrades built a wooden chapel on this site. But the most mysterious thing began only later. The Tatars came to the Kursk region again. They cut the icon in half, burned the chapel, and took the priest into captivity. After some time, the priest was ransomed from captivity. He found the cut parts of the icon, put them next to each other, and they grew together!
The icon then traveled around the world for a long time, and eventually ended up in New York - in the Cathedral of the Sign of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Here's the story. But it's not all bad. Every year the icon is brought here, to its homeland, to the Kursk Root Monastery...
On the territory of the monastery there is a bronze monument depicting the ever-memorable Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II and the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan Laurus, holding in their hands the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God “The Sign”.
Healing of St. Seraphim of Sarov
The Kursk Root Icon at one time cured St. Seraphim of Sarov, for whose recovery no one hoped... A monument to him was erected in the central part of the monastery.
Over the years of its existence, the monastery has experienced a lot of things. And what had been created over several centuries was successfully destroyed by Soviet power (in fact, as in many similar places).
The exits from the top of the hill, where the monastery building is located, to the source and the Tuskori River were broken,
the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was blown up,
the dome of the bell tower was demolished,
The holy spring by the river was concreted (although it later broke through again),
The surrounding forest was cut down, so that even the Tuskor River could not stand it and became shallow.
Despite all this, the monastery complex was still restored.
And every day people come here from all over Russia (and not only).
The springs of the monastery are famous for the fact that their water treats eye diseases.
They say that there are even known cases of healing. We also tried healing water from springs, of which there are several here.
At the entrance to the monastery there is a monastery shop, where the most popular product is empty bottles with a capacity of 5 liters!
Last call
Now remember your last bell at school. Where did you go as a class after it? As far as I remember, we went home that day, and the next day we went out of town into nature.
On this day, the last bell rang in schools in the Kursk region. And we met the graduates here, in the Kursk Root Hermitage.
Well, as befits a monastery - you can’t live without monastery cats. They are everywhere here and in a variety of colors - black, red, gray...
And each has its own character.
Someone behaves decorously, as befits a real monastery cat,
someone behaves like an ordinary yard shed, sorting things out in front of everyone.
After a short lunch we head further to. Next time I will tell you why our great poet changed his last name three times (!), why he stayed for a second year while studying at the University, and why the local donkey on the estate is called Nekrasov.
Don't miss it!
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23:00 3.05.2005
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Seemingly respectable people here shout in inhuman voices, and children with angelic faces swear like movers. “The monks at the prayer service reveal our dark side,” with conviction
Seemingly respectable people here shout in inhuman voices, and children with angelic faces swear like movers. “The monks at the prayer service reveal our dark side,” says 33-year-old Rita, who arrived here from the south of Russia, with conviction, and her black eyes look as if they are taking an x-ray of my soul. “I went through this too - I screamed and fainted when they sprinkled holy water on me. And then I didn’t even want to believe that this was happening to me. But I know my sin - I am angry. There is darkness in everyone, only in some there is more, in others less. At such moments it comes out.” According to popular rumor, here, in the monastery of the Root Hermitage, “reprimands” and “exorcism of demons” take place. Hundreds of people - of different incomes and varying strengths of faith - from many regions of Russia come here with the hope of getting rid of diseases. Now the parishioners are in alarm: they say that Bishop Herman of Kursk and Rylsk prohibits such rituals. It was, frankly speaking, scary to go to this place. Newspaper work in general is connected with all sorts of passions and temptations - in general, it is a testing ground for demons. What if they take it and climb out in front of all the honest people? After all, they tell all sorts of things about the local wonders... The path to the monastery is not immediately visible, but the residents of the village of Svoboda willingly show you. Where to go A row of houses opens up - and the city dweller begins to feel dizzy from the opening view. It is not without reason that monks are considered to be an expert in beauty. It seems that someone's giant hand has gathered the earth into folds like green velvet. The monastery is surrounded by pine and birch trees - according to folk wisdom, “to be treated in a birch forest, to pray in a pine forest” (“and to hang yourself in a spruce forest”) True, those who come here for a prayer service for the sick - the priests themselves avoid the words “deduction”, “reading” - not up to beauty of the landscape. The prayer service begins at one o'clock in the afternoon, but people gather in the monastery church in advance - for an appointment, like at the reception desk of a clinic in the flu winter. An elderly woman writes in a thick notebook the names of “full-time students” - that is, those who came on their own, and “external students” - those for whom relatives and friends ask to pray. They immediately buy candles, give notes of health and repose, and make donations. On average, everyone leaves one hundred fifty to two hundred rubles in the church. The queue is mostly women 30-50 years old. There are almost no peaceful faces on which it would be written “Life is good!” They are mostly sad or preoccupied - as if in their greeting notes they would not miss someone from their relatives who had come from afar. There are fewer men - and you can immediately see from their gaze and gait who came here as a driver for their wife and mother-in-law, and who was brought by misfortune. Children's feet are stomping around the church - mothers took their babies with them. One pale boy was immediately seated on a bench, his nose began to bleed. “Father Benjamin served here before. Oh, and a strong father! - a woman more experienced in these matters enlightens me and several other newcomers. “Now he holds prayer services in the Root Hermitage itself, and here Father Nikita, his assistant, reads.” “This is the fourth time I’ve come here,” sighs another parishioner. – I’m suffering with my heart, I’m suffering from hypertension, I spent so much money on medicine... Doctors don’t help me. Now I’ve brought my daughter - she and her husband are not at odds, maybe someone has caused damage, you never know how many are envious?” All this time, sounds ranging from the murmur of a crane to the howl of a dog are heard throughout the church. They are made by a woman with a handkerchief in her mouth, who is hunched over and sitting on a bench by the window. Suddenly she jumps up, some force begins to twist her. The first thought is to take out your mobile phone and call an ambulance. A tall, thin parishioner touches my shoulder with her hand: I lingered for an inappropriately long time on someone else’s suffering, and this is not accepted here. A strong man, her relative, rushes to the woman, hugs her and carefully seats her in her seat. “The priest is coming!” - the parishioners whisper. Father Nikita enters and the prayer service begins. One hundred and fifty people were crammed into a room about one hundred meters in size. At the altar are those who clearly need help: the same woman with a handkerchief in her mouth, who is still hugged by a man, another “patient”, muttering something angrily under her breath... Against the background of the prayer rumble, vomiting sounds are heard every now and then : some parishioners, as if on an airplane, bring bags to their faces. It is believed that this - as well as constant yawning and marking time - is a sure sign that the demons lodged in a person are rushing out. A song to the Most Holy Theotokos sounds, which is picked up by dozens of voices. Father Nikita goes around those who have come and puts crosses in oil. At this moment, a piercingly thin voice - inhuman, but coming from a 40-year-old woman with an exhausted face - begins to hurl selective obscenities at a certain mother-in-law. Suddenly, right in front of me, a plump lady, supported by relatives on both sides, silently fainted. She lies on the floor until the end of the prayer service, and her companions look at each other with sorrowful faces. I feel stuffy, and I go to the window with the window slightly open. Father Nikita just started talking about demons - “go away,” “go away,” “from the soul, from the heart, from the mind, from the inside...” “I’m dry! I can't go out! - Next to me, a village pilgrim with a distorted face frantically beats herself on her sunken stomach and tries to cough up something. - Stuck! They sent it to the garden near the well!” And every time the priest says “Say your names,” she shouts angrily: “I’m Elizabeth!” After the prayer service, everyone lines up - Father Nikita lets them kiss the cross and sprinkles it with holy water. For some this is grace, for others - again screams and fainting. Then it’s time to ask the priest for advice. It is clear that he is very tired, sweat is running down his forehead, but he patiently talks with everyone. True, he didn’t talk to the journalist about the prayer service: “Sorry, I’m a simple monk, we are strict about this. You better go to Father Benjamin.” The priest is threatened with physical harm - subtitle Hieromonk Veniamin, abbot of the Root Hermitage Monastery - one of the few priests who was allowed by Archbishop Herman of Kursk and Rylsk to exorcise demons. According to the Bishop, rituals called “deductions” are a temptation for priests to make easy money, so they should be prohibited. Only selected monks are entrusted with fighting demons at prayer services for the sick. “I’m already tired of explaining that I don’t proofread, but rumors are spreading, people are coming,” Father Veniamin admits in a conversation with an MK correspondent. – It’s not me who helps, but God! It’s even bad if people travel to holy places with the question: “Where would you get treatment?” They are not looking for God, but for those who heal. It’s disgusting to listen to Father Benjamin’s treatment. Ashamed before God. While people are looking for Fathers Benjamin, who are reading, they will not be healed. But it’s good that at least because of this they come to the prayer service. They need to be told that they need confession, communion, that only a righteous life will help them recover. If a person doesn’t go to church, proofread him, don’t proofread him, it won’t do any good. After all, why do people get sick? They have backslidden from God. First the soul suffers, then the body. – Is it difficult to serve a prayer service? - I've been doing this for eight years. At first, when there were few people, it was easy. And then, two days before the prayer service, fear began to appear: “Oh, maybe someone will serve?” Recently I gave one to serve, he collapsed and could not come to the evening service - he had no strength. For those who hold prayer services for the sake of money, it is always easy for them. For those who serve for the Lord, it is hard work. You need to squeeze everything out of yourself to bring a person to realize why he lives on earth - to save his soul. I don’t even know how much money we collect from the prayer service, I haven’t counted it. Maybe for the better. But now we are supposed to keep strict records, so we will need to control it. – Why do people scream and faint? These are my personal observations: often unclean spirits try to convince the priest that he has special healing powers. They make people shout in order to seduce the priest - “This is what I can do!” - and lead to the underworld. Moreover, the unclean act through people who are already in their hands - for example, envious, proud, vengeful, unfaithful to their spouses. Sick children, susceptible to unclean spirits, suffer for their parents - for their sins, unbelief, unmarried marriage. – Is it true that they threatened to kill you? “Sometimes they shout at services: “We will kill you!” One day a woman rushed at me with a bench in her hands. Another hit her on the cheek. And I applied the rule from the Gospel: I turned the other cheek. The woman fainted. I'm not sure if I did it out of humility... Maybe out of pride. Sometimes I think that maybe some people don’t benefit from being healed. For example, for those who will not go to God later - to confess, to receive communion. Therefore, I personally do not have a goal to heal people here. The main thing is that a person learns a righteous life. And the Lord will judge whether he should be healed or not. We cannot live without sorrows. They say: if a person has no sorrows, it’s even scary. Maybe it was the Lord who abandoned him. It is better that there are sorrows. We must be able to endure them humbly and patiently.
Root Deserts (Russia) - description, history, location. Exact address and website. Tourist reviews, photos and videos.
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About half an hour’s drive from Kursk (30 km), on the banks of the quiet Tuskar River, in the 13th century, on the site of the discovery of the famous icon of the Mother of God “The Sign,” the unusually beautiful Kursk Root Monastery of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Hermitage, revered in the center of Russia, was built.
As soon as one of them lifted it, a spring began to flow from this place, and when the man saw it, he placed the icon of the “Sign” of the Mother of God in the hole of this tree. The hunter told about such an unprecedented thing to his comrades, who, after consulting, built a chapel just above the mentioned place (where the cathedral Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary was later built), in which they placed a wonderful icon. This incident is evidenced by the sculptural ensemble at the entrance to the monastery, created by Kursk sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov.
Numerous pilgrims began to come to where the icon was found. And then Vasily Shemyaka, Prince of Rylsk, ordered her to be transported to the city of Rylsk. But the prince did not show worthy honors to the miraculous icon and soon became blind, regaining his sight only when he promised to build a church in Rylsk in the name of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where the miraculous icon was subsequently kept. Miraculously disappearing from the church, the icon returned to the place where the hunters found it. They tried to transport it to the city more than once, but each time the icon ended up at the place where it appeared.
In 1383, the Tatar-Mongols again attacked the land of Kursk and decided to burn down the chapel, but, alas, it did not catch fire. Then, in a rage, the wicked cut the holy icon in half. Elder Bogolyub found the remaining pieces and put them together, and, lo and behold, they grew together.
Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, having heard about the wonderful icon, issued a decree in 1597 to revive the city of Kursk. And the icon was transported to Moscow for veneration, where a special cypress board was built around it, on which there were images of prophets from the Old Testament, and it was placed in a frame made of silver with gilding, decorated with pearls and valuable stones. Queen Irina and her daughter Princess Theodosia embroidered the shroud for the setting with gold with their own hands. The “Sign” icon of the Mother of God was returned again to the Root Hermitage, where, at the direction of the Tsar-Father, a monastery and cathedral were built in the name of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In the 18th century, the Korennaya Hermitage was rebuilt with stone thanks to the donations of Field Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetyev, who had visited the holy monastery a little earlier.
The church of the life-giving spring was built over the miraculous spring, and stone gates with images of hell and the Last Judgment appeared.
The Root Desert has gone through many different events: destruction, devastation, closure and looting during the Soviet years, the Great Patriotic War, revival. It was only in 1989 that the monastery again appeared in the Kursk-Belgorod diocese, and a year later the monastery began a new life. Today, along with the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and the Nizhny Novgorod Diveyevo monastery of Seraphim of Sarov, Root Hermitage is the third religious center in Russia. Restoration work is underway here, divine services are held, there is a functioning monastery and a small almshouse.
Every day a huge number of pilgrims come to the church of the “Life-Giving Spring” icon and to the source itself for holy water and to plunge into the font. After all, they say that even the clothes you swim in heal later.
A copy of the icon is in the monastery, and the original is in the New York (USA) Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. It is periodically brought to the monastery so that Russian believers can bow and touch the shrine.
The monastery is of extraordinary beauty! After restoration, its buildings, painted sky blue, look amazing!
Not long ago, a monument to Seraphim of Sarov (author - Vyacheslav Klykov), a native of the city of Kursk, was erected in the center of the monastery. Having been healed at the age of ten from a serious illness with the help of the miraculous icon “The Sign,” the monk later visited here several times.
In addition to pilgrimage trips, tourist excursions are often organized to the Kursk Root Hermitage. After all, the monastery is not only a blessed sacred place, but also our past, the history of Russia.
How to get there
From the Kursk railway station, take any minibus going to the Dubrovinsky stop, from which gazelle buses depart every 15 minutes to the village of Svoboda. Get off after about 30-40 minutes (it’s better to ask the driver for a stop).
If you ever have to go on a long business trip to the Kursk region, do not be discouraged: treat your forced exile as a pleasant trip. Unexpected adventures await a passenger who boards a Kursk tram or commuter bus. Which, perhaps, will help you understand why large inscriptions hang in the central city cafes: “Kursk is the best city in the world.”
The villages of the Kursk region differ little from those in Voronezh: the same roads, the same dull private sector. The exception is, perhaps, the village of Svoboda. on the territory of which there is a favorite place of all Orthodox pilgrims, known as the Kursk Root Hermitage. Just half an hour's drive from Kursk - and you are there.
You can stay overnight in this building and at the inn, next to which there are cafes, restaurants, a fair and even a store that sells food for cats and dogs. The infrastructure of the village can only be envied.
What is Kornaya Pustyn known for? A men's monastery, which was completely destroyed during the years of Soviet power, and then rebuilt, with springs with holy water and the famous icon, better known as the “Sign” of the Mother of God. You can learn about the centuries-old history of the monastery in the historical and cultural center located next to the monastery. There you will see rare archival photographs of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, read letters from Prince Sheremetyev and military leader Kutuzov, who venerated the shrine: for a long time the icon was the patroness of the Russian army.
Travel icon
It is called the Root Hermitage because of the miraculous “Sign” icon of the Mother of God, which since ancient times was called Kursk, which appeared here in 1295 at the roots of an elm tree. With the appearance of the wooden icon, a water source began to flow. Over time, the fame of the miraculous icon reached Moscow. Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich ordered it to be moved to Moscow for worship. And later he issued a decree in which he ordered to build a monastery of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the place where the icon appeared. The icon itself remained in the capital until the end of the “time of troubles” and until Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov came to the throne in 1613.
This miraculous icon existed until 1597
At numerous requests from the Kursk residents, he ordered the icon to be moved back to Kursk. But before his “departure,” he ordered the shrine to be decorated with a gold frame studded with pearls and precious stones. The icon was carried from Moscow to Kursk in a religious procession. Since then, the Znamensky Monastery has become the permanent “place of residence” of the icon.
"Classic" list of icons
The icon itself was blown up: on March 8, 1898, in the Znamensky Cathedral of Kursk, revolutionary terrorists planted a bomb on the image of the Mother of God. As a result of the explosion, a massive wall cracked, the cast-iron canopy above the icon was destroyed, nothing remained even of the marble steps, and the glass in the cathedral cracked. But the miraculous icon remained safe and sound - they say that even the glass in the icon case was not damaged.
Later list of icons
In 1919, with the outbreak of the Civil War, the icon was evacuated to Serbia. In Belgrade in 1925, the Russian Trinity Church was built for her. from that time on, the Kursk Icon of the Sign became the main shrine of the Russian Diaspora. In 1944, along with the emigration, the icon began to travel around Europe - the shrine visited Vienna, Munich, Paris, London, Brussels. The icon’s adventures ended in the USA, not far from New York, where the “emigrant” arrived in 1951. Now it can be seen in the New York Synodal Cathedral of the Sign of the Mother of God.
Closed springs
The Kursk Root Hermitage itself is located near the Tuskari River. The hill on which the monastery stands offers a picturesque view. In October 1923, Pustyn was closed, and the monastic brethren took refuge in dugouts, enduring hunger and cold. Monastery valuables, including a unique library, were looted. The monastery's temples, the bell tower, the steps leading to the source, and the historical chapel at the root where the icon was found were dismantled brick by brick. On the site of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the Svoboda sanatorium was built. After the Great Patriotic War, a vocational school was located in the surviving monastery buildings, which later became an agricultural vocational school.
Numerous pilgrims come here not only to draw holy water from the springs, but also to pray to St. Seraphim of Sarov, whose sculpture stands on the territory of the monastery.
In 1959, Kursk communists from the executive committee of the Svobodinsky District Council of Workers' Deputies issued a decree that prohibited public access to the springs of the Root Desert.
“...the organizers of the pilgrimage to the spring in the former “Root Hermitage” are various kinds of cliques, fools and other dubious persons who use the spring to spread superstitions and extract large sums of money from the population. Accumulating at the springs, people, also bathing in shallow river (Tuscari - author's note) and those who use these sources turn them and the surrounding area into a hotbed of infection. This creates a high infectious morbidity rate in the area..." - said in the leaflets announcing the order of the authorities.
The Kursk Root Hermitage was rehabilitated in 1989, that is, after 66 years of an atheistic ban. Since then the monastery has been revived. In 1991, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' visited the Root Hermitage and consecrated the first revived church in the former refectory building.
