The Closure and the Rebirth
After its suppression Optina passed through the whole via dolorosa of a Soviet monastery: a museum, an agricultural and workers’ settlement, and — on the eve of the Second World War — an NKVD camp, one of the holding-camps for the Polish officers later murdered at Katyn. Returned to the Church in 1987 and reborn as a monastery, Optina knew, on Pascha 1993, a further sorrow: the murder of three of its monks. This file tells that story soberly.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Optina synaxis glorified 1996 local / 2000 general)
The Soviet Decades: Museum, Settlement, Camp
After the monastery was suppressed in the early 1920s, its buildings did not stand empty. Part of Optina was preserved as a museum — “Optina Pustyn” as a monument of history and art, a common Soviet expedient — while the grounds were put to secular use as a workers’ and agricultural settlement (the settlement was renamed, in the atheist idiom of the day, and the churches were closed, stripped, or repurposed) (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn i eyo vremya, Jordanville, 1970, on the museum and the settlement; the standard histories of Optina’s Soviet fate). The skete, the churches, and the cells that had housed the eldership were turned to rest-homes, schools, and storage, and the monastery’s treasures were dispersed.
The most sombre chapter came with the Second World War. In 1939–1940 the buildings of Optina were used by the NKVD as a special camp at Kozelsk, one of the three principal camps in which Polish army officers and officials taken after the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland were held; most of the Kozelsk prisoners were subsequently transported and shot in the spring of 1940 in the Katyn massacre (this is well documented in the history of the Katyn massacre: the Kozelsk camp was located in the former Optina Pustyn, and its prisoners were among the Katyn victims; see the standard histories of Katyn). Later the site served other camp and hospital uses during and after the war. That the skete of the elders — a place built for prayer and the healing of souls — became for a season a holding-pen on the road to a mass grave is among the bitterest ironies of Optina’s Soviet history, and it is soberly recorded rather than dramatized.
The Return of 1987 and the Rebirth
Optina was among the first monasteries returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in the thaw that preceded the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus. In November 1987 the monastery was returned to the Church, and monastic life resumed the following year, so that Optina was reborn almost exactly as the Church prepared to celebrate the thousand years of Russian Christianity in 1988 (the return of Optina in November 1987 and the resumption of monastic life in 1988 are standard; Optina Monastery, OrthodoxWiki, following the monastery’s own record; and see St. Ambrose of Optina: Optina Today). The timing was providential in the Church’s eyes: the return of the great monastery of the eldership coincided with the 1988 Local Council that canonized St. Ambrose and inaugurated the recovery of Russian church life (see Glorification and Veneration). The ruined churches were rebuilt, the skete restored, and a new brotherhood gathered; the women’s convent at Shamordino was likewise returned and revived (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970, on Shamordino; the revival of both houses after 1990). Within a few years Optina was again a living monastery and a place of pilgrimage, drawing the crowds it had drawn a century before.
The Paschal Murders of 1993
The rebirth was marked by a fresh and terrible sorrow. On the night of Pascha, 18 April 1993, as the newly revived monastery celebrated the Resurrection, three of its members were murdered: Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov), a former university athlete who had become a monk and priest, and two young monks, Trophim (Tatarnikov) and Ferapont (Pushkarev), who were ringing the bells for the feast (the account of the Paschal murders is well attested in the monastery’s record and the Russian press: “New Martyrs of Optina Pustyn,” OrthodoxWiki; the Optina memorial accounts). The killer, Nikolai Averin, a local man who identified himself as a Satanist and was found to be mentally disturbed, stabbed the two bell-ringers in the belfry and then Fr. Vasily as he went to hear confessions, using a long knife engraved with the number 666 and the word “satan”; he was apprehended and, being found mentally ill, was committed rather than tried (the details of the weapon and the perpetrator are as reported in the monastery’s accounts and the Russian press — “New Martyrs of Optina Pustyn,” OrthodoxWiki; reported here soberly and without embellishment).
The three are venerated locally at Optina as new martyrs and are buried at the monastery, where their graves are a place of pilgrimage; but it must be stated plainly that they are not among the fourteen glorified Optina Elders, nor have they been formally glorified for general veneration by the Russian Church as of the present writing — their veneration is local and popular, and the accounts of miracles at their graves are reported as what the faithful attest, not certified (the distinction between the fourteen glorified Elders and the three Paschal martyrs is important and is kept here; “New Martyrs of Optina Pustyn,” OrthodoxWiki). The 1993 murders are recorded in this collection because they belong to the history of the reborn monastery and because they are often, and understandably, confused with the glorification of the elders; sobriety requires that the two be distinguished.
Optina Today
Optina today is a large and flourishing monastery, one of the spiritual centers of the Russian Church, with a restored skete, rebuilt churches, and the relics of most of the elders enshrined within it (see Glorification and Veneration; and St. Ambrose of Optina: Optina Today). The eldership tradition, broken by the persecution, is not simply resumed — the living chain of elder-to-disciple was severed with Nikon and Nektary — but the monastery consciously stands in the Optina inheritance, and the memory of the elders, the crowds of pilgrims, and the published teaching make it again what it was: a place where the Russian Church goes to learn the way of humility and prayer. The rebirth of Optina, from museum and camp to living monastery, is one of the visible signs of the resurrection of the Russian Church after the Soviet night (Kontzevitch, Optina Pustyn, 1970, on the enduring significance of Optina; the monastery’s own record of its revival).
See Also
- Glorification and Veneration — the glorification of the elders and the feast
- The Eldership under Persecution — the closure that this file continues
- The Shamordino Convent and the Crowds — the convent that was suppressed and revived with Optina
- St. Ambrose of Optina: Optina Today — the fuller account of the revived monastery
References
- Kontzevitch, I. M. Optina Pustyn’ i eyo vremya. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1970. (The museum and settlement; the enduring significance of Optina.)
- “Optina Monastery” and “New Martyrs of Optina Pustyn.” OrthodoxWiki, following the monastery’s record and the Russian press — used to locate the 1987 return, the 1988 resumption, and the details of the 1993 Paschal murders (Hieromonk Vasily Roslyakov, monks Trophim Tatarnikov and Ferapont Pushkarev; the perpetrator Nikolai Averin), cross-checked against the Optina memorial accounts.
- On the Kozelsk NKVD camp in the former Optina Pustyn and the Katyn massacre (1939–1940): the standard histories of Katyn, which document the location of the Kozelsk camp in the former monastery and the fate of its Polish prisoners.
- The full account of the revived monastery in St. Ambrose of Optina: Optina Today.