Lemeshivka St. John the Theologian's Monastery

A former manor in the village of Lemeshivka, in the Vinnytsia region, is now occupied by Lemeshivka St John the Theologian's Monastery, a male house of the Vinnytsia Eparchy^{2, 9}. The village itself has been known since the seventeenth century^{4, 9}, while the monastery in it is young: it was founded in 1999^{2, 9}.

Who built the manor, and when, is not documented: the exact date of construction is unknown, and by its style the building is assigned to Classicism⁹. Written mentions of Lemeshivka and of the manor appear at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in inventories of the Ostrovskyi family's property². A local tradition holds that in the Mongol period a monastery stood on the site of the present village, founded by monks of the Kyiv Caves Lavra who moved into the Lemeshivka woods after the destruction of Kyiv in 1240, and that it did not last long². That is a tradition and not a document, and the beginning of the present house does not lie in it.

The first church dedicated to the Apostle John the Theologian was built in the village by the landowner Martselii Ostrovskyi in 1799-1807; it was consecrated in 1811 by Ioannikii (Polonskyi), Archbishop of Podillia². From 1862 a two-grade school worked beside it, founded by the priest Arkadii Stempkovskyi, who died in 1878; his grave survives to this day in the monastery cemetery².

In 1872 the manor was bought by Volodymyr Spasovych - a jurist, politician and historian of literature, professor at the university of St Petersburg². In his day he was called the king of the Russian bar; he wrote the first textbook of criminal law in the Russian Empire, and Repin painted his portrait⁹. Spasovych is buried in Lemeshivka's Catholic cemetery, and that burial has survived⁹.

After the revolution of 1917 the manor stood empty, and from 1924 to 1990 it housed a general school². The pre-revolutionary church was demolished in 1932; a chapel of St Mark the Gravedigger now stands on its site, together with the monastery cemetery². In the 1990s a parish of St John the Theologian appeared again in the former manor - from 1994 according to the eparchy's account, from 1996 according to the house's own^{2, 4}.

Archimandrite Feodosii (Shkliaruk) came to Lemeshivka in 1999 with several novices². He had been tonsured in 1989 with a name honouring St Theodosius of the Caves, was ordained priest the following year, and from 1990 served in the Holy Trinity convent at Brailiv, newly reopened after decades of persecution; in 1999 he was briefly superior of the Liadova monastery and then of the Sharhorod one³. He founded the new male monastery at Lemeshivka in October of that same year, with the blessing of Makarii (Svystun), the ruling bishop of the Vinnytsia Eparchy³.

The first Liturgy was served on 9 October 1999, the patronal feast day, in the former manor house itself, which was later converted into a church^{2, 8}; since then services in the house have not stopped for a single day². The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed the canonical opening of the monastery by Journal No. 28 of 21 December 2001¹ - by which time the community had been living and praying there for two years.

Through the efforts of the superior and the brotherhood the former manor was restored, and besides the church it came to hold a refectory, a prosphora bakery, a sacristy and the monks' cells². In 2005 the winter church of the Apostle John the Theologian, arranged inside the building together with the cells, was consecrated, and with it the new gate church of St Theodosius of the Caves^{2, 4}; in 2011 came the summer church of the Nativity of St Nicholas^{2, 4}. A bell tower, a superior's building and various outbuildings were also put up². By the house's tenth anniversary, marked in 2009, the labour of twelve monks had repaired the church and raised the monastery walls and towers, a large new brotherhood building, a kitchen and utility rooms, with gas and water brought in⁸.

In houses bought and donated in Lemeshivka itself the monastery opened several sketes - for husbandry and for the care of the elderly; in one of them a home for elderly people was arranged^{6, 8}. The monastery's husbandry is kept in these sketes².

The founder of the house died on 24 August 2016, in his 56th year, after a long illness^{3, 14}. He was buried on 25 August in the monastery cemetery, beside the altar wall of the church of St Mark the Gravedigger, which had been built through his own efforts³.

Today the house has churches and chapels consecrated in honour of the Apostle John the Theologian, the Nativity of St Nicholas, St Theodosius of the Caves, St Mark the Gravedigger and the Martyr John the Warrior². The monastic year follows the same circle: 9 October, the patronal feast of the Apostle John the Theologian⁷; 11 August, the Nativity of St Nicholas, the patronal feast of the summer church, with a festal procession around the house¹²; 11 January, the day of St Mark the Gravedigger¹³; and 12 August, the commemoration of the Martyr John the Warrior⁷.

Among the house's treasured things are old icons of the Nativity of Christ and of the Prophet Elijah, painted on canvas: they were found during the conversion of the manor house into monastery premises, rolled up in scrolls and hidden behind the jamb of the doors leading into the winter church of the Apostle John the Theologian^{5, 8}. Here too is a copy of the Skoroposlushnytsia icon of the Mother of God, a locally venerated image kept with a feast on 22 November^{2, 10}, and the Tyvrivska icon of the Mother of God is honoured on the Wednesday of Bright Week^{2, 11}.

Services are celebrated daily: the morning ones begin at six in the morning and the evening ones at five in the evening, while at the evening services akathists are read to the saints and to the treasured things the house particularly venerates². Pilgrims from various parts of Ukraine come to the monastery for these services regularly².