The
PechengaPechenga is an urban-type settlement in Pechengsky District, Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Municipally, it is incorporated as Pechenga Urban Settlement. As of 2002 Census, its population was 2,959 people, composing 6.4% of Pechengsky District's population total...
Monastery ( and ) was for many centuries the northernmost
monasteryMonastery , a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer Monastery (plural: monasteries), a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios...
in the world. It was founded in 1533 at the influx of the
Pechenga RiverPechenga is a river in Murmansk Oblast, Russia . It is the namesake for the Pechenga settlement, Pechenga Monastery and the Pechenga District. The river discharges into the Pechenga Bay by the Barents Sea coast....
into the
Barents SeaThe Barents Sea is a part of the Arctic Ocean located north of Norway and Russia. It is a rather deep shelf sea , bordered by the shelf edge towards the Norwegian Sea in the west, the island of Svalbard in the northwest, and the islands of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya in the northeast and...
, 135 km west of modern
MurmanskMurmansk is a city and seaport in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, 12 km from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland....
, by
St. TryphonSaint Tryphon of Pechenga was a Russian monk in the Eastern Orthodox Church and led an ascetic life on the Kola Peninsula and in Lappland in the 16th century. He is considered to be the founder of the Pechenga Monastery....
, a monk from Novgorod.
Inspired by the model of the
SolovkiSolovetsky Monastery was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp , which served as a prototype for the GULAG system. Situated on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, the monastery braved many changes of fortune...
, Tryphon wished to convert the local
SkoltsThe Skolt Sámi or Skolts are a visible Orthodox ethnic group in Lapland, Finland. They currently live in and around the villages of Sevettijärvi, Keväjärvi, Nellim in the municipality of Inari and also in the village of Neiden in the municipality of Tana, Norway...
to Christianity and to demonstrate how faith could flourish in the most inhospitable lands. His example was eagerly followed by other Russian monks.
The
PechengaPechenga is an urban-type settlement in Pechengsky District, Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Municipally, it is incorporated as Pechenga Urban Settlement. As of 2002 Census, its population was 2,959 people, composing 6.4% of Pechengsky District's population total...
Monastery ( and ) was for many centuries the northernmost
monasteryMonastery , a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer Monastery (plural: monasteries), a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios...
in the world. It was founded in 1533 at the influx of the
Pechenga RiverPechenga is a river in Murmansk Oblast, Russia . It is the namesake for the Pechenga settlement, Pechenga Monastery and the Pechenga District. The river discharges into the Pechenga Bay by the Barents Sea coast....
into the
Barents SeaThe Barents Sea is a part of the Arctic Ocean located north of Norway and Russia. It is a rather deep shelf sea , bordered by the shelf edge towards the Norwegian Sea in the west, the island of Svalbard in the northwest, and the islands of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya in the northeast and...
, 135 km west of modern
MurmanskMurmansk is a city and seaport in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, 12 km from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland....
, by
St. TryphonSaint Tryphon of Pechenga was a Russian monk in the Eastern Orthodox Church and led an ascetic life on the Kola Peninsula and in Lappland in the 16th century. He is considered to be the founder of the Pechenga Monastery....
, a monk from Novgorod.
Inspired by the model of the
SolovkiSolovetsky Monastery was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp , which served as a prototype for the GULAG system. Situated on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, the monastery braved many changes of fortune...
, Tryphon wished to convert the local
SkoltsThe Skolt Sámi or Skolts are a visible Orthodox ethnic group in Lapland, Finland. They currently live in and around the villages of Sevettijärvi, Keväjärvi, Nellim in the municipality of Inari and also in the village of Neiden in the municipality of Tana, Norway...
to Christianity and to demonstrate how faith could flourish in the most inhospitable lands. His example was eagerly followed by other Russian monks. By 1572, the Pechenga Monastery counted about 50 brethren and 200 lay followers.
Six years after St. Tryphon's death in 1583, the wooden monastery was raided and burnt down by the Swedes.
It is said that the raid claimed the lives of 51 monks and 65 lay brothers, bringing the history of Tryphon's establishment to an end. This revenge raid was carried out by a Finnish peasant chief Pekka Antinpoika Vesainen on December 25, 1589, and was part of the Russo-Swedish War of 1590 - 1595.
In 1591 Tsar Fyodor I ordered to revive the monastery in the vicinity of
KolaKola is a town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kola and Tuloma Rivers, 12 km south of Murmansk and 24 km south-west of Severomorsk. It is the oldest town of the Kola Peninsula. Population: 11,060 .The district of Kolo was first attested in Russian...
, but the new hermitage fell in flames in 1619. Although the New Pechenga Monastery was eventually moved to the town itself, it was so sparsely settled that the
Holy SynodIn several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod...
deemed it wise to disband it in 1764.
As the Russian colonization of the
Kola PeninsulaThe Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far north of Russia, part of the Murmansk Oblast. It borders upon the Barents Sea on the North and the White Sea on the East and South...
accelerated in the late 19th century, the Pechenga Monastery was restored at its original location in 1886. Prior to the
Russian RevolutionThe Russian Revolution is the collective term for the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. In the first revolution of February 1917 the Czar was deposed and replaced by a Provisional government...
, it consisted of the Upper Monastery, commemorating the graves of Tryphon and 116 martyrs of the 1589 raid, and the new Lower Monastery, overlooking the
Pechenga BayPechenga Bay is a fjord-like bay of the Barents Sea on the Kola Peninsula in the Murmansk Oblast, Russia, about 25 km east from the border with Norway. It has rocky shores and stretches inland for 17 km. The Pechenga River discharges into the bay...
.
The
stauropegicStauropegic, also rendered stavropegic, stauropegial, or stavropegial is a title or description applied to Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christian monasteries subordinated directly to a Patriarch or Synod, rather than to their local Bishop...
monastery continued to flourish when Pechenga became part of Finland in 1920. At the end of the
Continuation WarThe Continuation War The Continuation War The Continuation War was the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II....
in 1944 the
Moscow ArmisticeFinland and the Soviet Union signed the Moscow Armistice on September 19, 1944, ending the Continuation War. The Moscow Armistice should not be confused with the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940, which ended the earlier Winter War between the two states....
granted Petsamo to the Soviet Union. The brethren
were evacuatedEvacuation of Finnish Karelia was the resettlement of the population of Finnish Karelia and other territories ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union into the remaining parts of Finland...
to the
New Valamo MonasteryNew Valamo or New Valaam is an Orthodox monastery in Heinävesi, Finland. The monastery was established in 1940, when some 190 monks from Valaam Monastery in Karelia were evacuated from their old abode on a group of islands in Lake Laatokka to Eastern Finland...
, where they kept their autonomy until 1984 when the last of them died at the
age of 110A supercentenarian is someone who has reached the age of 110 years, something achieved by only one in a thousand centenarians...
. Although the monastery buildings were destroyed during the war, the
Russian Orthodox ChurchThe Russian Orthodox Church ; or The Moscow Patriarchate , also known...
decreed the reestablishment of the monastery in Pechenga in 1997.