Everything about Danilov Monastery totally explained
Danilov Monastery, in full
Svyato-Danilov Monastery or
Holy Danilov Monastery (Данилов монастырь, Свято-Данилов монастырь in
Russian), is a
monastery on the right bank of the
Moskva River in
Moscow,
Russia. Since
1983, it has functioned as the headquarters of the
Russian Orthodox church.
History
Danilov Monastery was founded in the late
13th century by
Alexander Nevsky's son
Daniil. Shortly before his death in
1303, Danilo took monastic vows and later was buried at Danilov Monastery. The
Russian Orthodox church venerates him as a
saint. The very first
Muscovite archmandrite came from this monastery in
1300.
In the
14th -
15th centuries, Danilov Monastery fell into decline. In
1560,
Ivan the Terrible brought it back to life. In
1591, when the armies of a
Crimean khan Kaza Giray approached Moscow, the area around Danilov Monastery was turned into a fortified mobile camp.
In
1606, the rebels under the command of
Ivan Bolotnikov and
Istoma Pashkov collided with the army of
Vasili IV not far from the monastery. In
1607, an
impostor by the name of
Ileyka Muromets, who had pretended to be
tsarevich Peter (son of
Feodor I of Russia), was executed next to Danilov Monastery. Being in the center of many military events during the
Time of Troubles, the monastery was severely damaged in
1610. In the early
17th century, it was surrounded by a brick wall with seven towers.
In
1710, there were 30
monks in Danilov Monastery. In
1764, there were only twelve of them on staff. In
1900, however, the number rose to seventeen. In
1812, the monastery was ransacked by the
French army. The monasterial
sacristy and
treasury, however, had been transported to
Vologda and
Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra shortly before the French occupied Moscow. First documented information on Danilov Monastery's landownership can be traced back to
1785, when it owned 18
desyatinas of land. By the end of the
19th century, the monastery had already possessed 178 desyatinas and a few buildings in
Moscow. In
1805, they opened an
almshouse for elderly women in the monastery, which was later turned into an
almshouse for elderly clergymen and their widows.
In the second half of the 19th century, Danilov Monastery's cemetery was a final resting place for many writers, artists and scientists, such as
Nikolai Gogol,
Nikolai Yazykov,
Vasili Perov,
Nikolai Rubinstein and many others. The remains of most of them, however, were transported in Soviet years to the
Novodevichy Cemetery. By
1917, Danilov Monastery had 19 monks and four
novices and owned 164
desyatinas of land.
After the
October Revolution, the monastery housed
archimandrites who had been deprived of their
pulpits. In
1929, the
Soviets issued a special decree on closing the monastery and organizing a detention facility on its premises under the auspices of
NKVD (приёмник-распределитель НКВД, or
priyomnik-raspredelitel' NKVD). The last monastery closed in Moscow became the first one to be returned in
1983 to the
Moscow Patriarchy and became a spiritual and administartive centre of the
Russian Orthodox Church. In
1988, the monastery was restored. A residence was built for the
Patriarch and
Synod, as well as a funeral
chapel and a chapel in commemoration of the 1000 years of Russia's
baptism.
Bells
When the monastery was closed in
1929 and
1930, its bell set was saved from
Communist melting through the purchase by American industrialist
Charles R. Crane. The largest of the bells, Bolshoi (or The Big One - called The Mother Earth Bell at Harvard), weighs 13 tons and has a 700 pound clapper. The smallest weighs just 22 pounds. Crane donated the bells to
Harvard University and they were installed in the main tower of Harvard's
Lowell House and at the Harvard Business School's Baker Library. Beginning in the 1980s, with openness under Gorbachev, there were calls to return the bells, and after numerous meetings over the years, the bells were returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2007. Russian industrialist
Viktor Vekselberg, famous for buying up a number of
Faberge Eggs, agreed to pay for the repatriation of the 18 bells and for the cost of casting replacements of them in Russia to be hung at Harvard. The first of the bells, known as the Everyday (or Weekday) Bell, weighing 2.2 tons, arrived at the Danilov Monastery on September 12, 2007; the remaining seventeen are to be returned in 2008.
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