St. Seraphim's Convent

The convent in the village of Pryborzhavske in the Irshava area — until 1960 the village was called Zadnie — was founded by a native of that same village, Hieromonk Hermohen (Skundziak)¹. In 1925 he entered the Tereblia monastery, where he took monastic vows; the following year he was ordained hierodeacon and then hieromonk, and was appointed to a parish¹.

Seeking solitude, Father Hermohen chose a place north of his native village, in the tract known as Za Lazom, and acquired land there from a villager named Panko in exchange for his own fertile plot; having dug a cave in the tract, he withdrew into it for ascetic labours¹. In 1927 he built a church in the neighbouring village of Bronka¹.

From 1931 Father Hermohen petitioned for a monastery to be established at Pryborzhavske, and in 1933, released from his parish duties, he put up a cell in his native place which for two years served him as both dwelling and church¹. He was joined by a fellow villager, the monk Serafym (Shandra)¹.

They laboured together until 1938—1939, when, with the blessing of the church authorities, the new community was transformed into a women's monastery¹. Hieromonk Hermohen remained with it as its spiritual father, and the nun Serafyma (Datso) became its abbess; under her direction a new church was built in the 1950s¹.

In 1959 the monastery was closed and its buildings given over to a Young Pioneer camp¹. The community was revived in 1990¹.

On 1 April 2015 the Holy Synod of the UOC granted the petition of Metropolitan Mark of Khust and Vynohradiv to build a house of his own on the monastery's grounds, and ruled that after the hierarch's death the house would pass into the monastery's full disposal².

Today the monastery has churches of St Seraphim of Sarov and of All Saints, a house church dedicated to the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow", two summer chapels, one of them consecrated in honour of the icon "Tenderness", a bell tower, a chapel over a spring, and older and newer residential buildings³. Among the community's holy things are particles of the relics of St Nicholas of Myra, St Job of Pochaiv, St Seraphim of Sarov and other saints⁴.

The monastery's patronal feasts are the commemoration of All Saints on the first Sunday after Trinity Sunday and the commemoration of St Seraphim of Sarov on 2 (15) January and 19 July (1 August)⁵. Hierarchical services are celebrated on those days: so it was on 15 January 2025⁶ and on 1 August 2026⁸, and on the eve of the latter, 31 July, a traditional cross procession reached the monastery, setting out from St Elijah's church in the town of Irshava with halts at the Dubrivka monastery of St John the Baptist and at the churches of the villages of Bilky and Pryborzhavske⁷.

Pryborzhavske is among the settlements whose monastic history is presented by the sources of the third volume of the consolidated subject-thematic catalogue of documents of the State Archive of Zakarpattia Oblast, "Ancient Monasteries of the Mukachevo Eparchy (1900—1990)", published on 22 April 2025⁹.