Life-Giving Cross Monastery

The monastery of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord stands in Yosafatova Valley, three and a half to four kilometres from the village of Holynchyntsi in the Vinnytsia region, and belongs to the Mohyliv-Podilsky eparchy^{3, 1}. Its second name - the Valley of Crosses - the place took from the crosses that people began to set up here after 1923⁵.

The valley was called Yosafatova by analogy with the well-known valley near Jerusalem¹. At its centre is a well of spring water beside which, according to the eparchy's tradition, services of supplication were held from of old¹; the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine dates the fame of that water to the end of the seventeenth century².

Tradition places the beginning of monastic life in these parts in the time of Ottoman rule over Podillia. In the account given alike by the eparchy and by the Church's central information department, the people of the surrounding villages sought refuge then in the Orthodox monastery of Kalynivka near Sharhorod, but that house too was in danger^{1, 4}.

Tradition goes on to say that the Mother of God appeared in a dream to some of the monks and blessed them to go towards the morning star; the brethren and a crowd of people set out eastwards and on the third day stopped for the night beside a well, where the Theotokos appeared to them a second time and blessed the district^{1, 4}. On that spot the monks founded a new house, and from their poverty, the same tradition says, came the name of the village^{1, 3}.

In the summer of 1923 an event took place at the well from which the fame of the valley began. The shepherd Yakiv Mysyk, who often prayed by the water, saw in it the image of the Mother of God with the Child and managed to ask what they were to do; tradition has handed down the answer: "Praise Christ, set up crosses"^{1, 2, 4}. The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine names two local shepherds as the witnesses of the apparition, Ya. Mysyk and Kh. Masloid, while the eparchy names Yakiv and a twelve-year-old girl, Khrystyna, who was pasturing sheep nearby^{1, 2}.

The villagers came to the well with banners and an image of Saint Nicholas, together with their priest Tykhon Petrynsky, and set up the first oak cross here¹; the encyclopedia names the Babii couple beside the priest². On the same day the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages set up crosses, and by autumn the whole valley was strewn with them¹.

Crosses were carried and sent from far away - from the Kuban and Odesa, the Dniester region, Bessarabia and the Donbas, and some people came by train from the Far East¹. According to the report of the civil prosecutor, which the eparchy quotes, more than one and a half million people visited the valley during five months of 1923¹; the encyclopedia gives the same figure and counts about seventeen thousand crosses set up².

The Soviet authorities answered quickly. A secret memorandum of 24 November 1923, quoted by the eparchy, described the healings and the influx of people in the valley as harmful to the communist idea¹. A special commission of the provincial executive committee resolved to destroy the crosses and stop the pilgrimage: mounted police patrols turned pilgrims back, crosses were sawn up for firewood, and those who sheltered pilgrims were arrested^{1, 2}.

In November fifty inhabitants of Holynchyntsi were arrested². Beaten and barefoot, they were driven first to Sharhorod and from there under escort to Vinnytsia; in the eparchy's account not one of them admitted guilt or renounced the faith¹. Yakiv Mysyk died of torture in his cell, and the rest were released in January 1924²; in the spring of that year all the crosses in the valley were taken down².

Returning home on foot, those who had been released found crosses set up anew in the valley: the eparchy counts sixteen thousand that appeared over the winter, and explains this by their being sent from distant places which the news of the reprisal had not yet reached¹.

On 21 June 1925, in the hall of the Vinnytsia provincial court, there opened the trial which the chronicles called the case of the crosses in Yosafatova Valley^{1, 4}. In the dock were nine priests and eighteen laypeople^{1, 2, 4}. The sentences were forced labour for various terms² - in the eparchy's account up to four years with strict isolation, while the lawyer Vasyl Sumnevych and the priests were forbidden to live in Ukraine for three years after serving their sentences¹.

The memory of the valley was preserved by a priest's family. Father Tykhon Petrynsky served in the village for almost half a century; after his death the family was driven out of their home, and his mortally ill widow Neonila Petrynska was taken in by the Zaletsky family, with whom she lived from 1944¹.

Her account so affected Ivan Artemovych Zaletsky that he later collected the recollections of old inhabitants and of witnesses of the trial, worked with archival material, wrote for newspapers and journals and spoke about the valley on the radio; the eparchy credits his efforts with the revival of the pilgrimage to the well as well¹.

The pilgrimage revived in the new century: the encyclopedia dates the revival to 2005 and counts about a thousand crosses set up anew². On 15 August 2006 thousands of people came to the valley for the first time with crosses, icons and banners, and two bishops and about two hundred priests took part in the celebration^{1, 4}. In the same year an icon was painted depicting the apparition of 1923¹.

From then on the cross procession of 15 August became annual. In 2015 it gathered more than twenty thousand pilgrims⁵, in 2016 it was led by three hierarchs⁴, and in 2017 by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church^{6, 7}. Two official sources reported different numbers of participants for that procession: the Church's central information department about fifteen thousand faithful⁷, and the Vinnytsia Oblast Council more than thirty-five thousand⁸.

In that same year of 2017 the oblast council counted more than seventeen thousand crosses in the valley⁸. On 18 July, at a session of the council, forty-three deputies at the second attempt resolved to transfer into permanent use of the St Nicholas Sharhorod Monastery the plot of 9.8 hectares on which the valley lies, for the building of a church of the Most Holy Theotokos and of cells⁹. The document of transfer was handed to the superior of that monastery, Archimandrite Kyprian, on 15 August 2017, the day of the procession⁸.

The house became a monastery in its own right on 12 May 2021: at the first session of that year of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church it was resolved to establish a men's monastery in honour of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord (the Valley of Crosses) of the Mohyliv-Podilsky eparchy^{10, 11}. The annual report of the Chancellor of the Church for 2021 cites this act as journal No. 7 of 12 May 2021¹². In the summer of the same year, on 15 August, the celebration in the valley was led by the head of the Synodal Commission for Monasteries, and about eight thousand faithful took part in the procession and the liturgy¹³.

The community was already keeping the patronal feast in the valley on 27 September 2022¹⁴, and on 27 September 2023, the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the church of the same dedication was consecrated in the monastery: the rite of consecration was led by Metropolitan Ahapit of Mohyliv-Podilsky and Sharhorod, concelebrating with Metropolitan Panteleimon of Uman and Zvenyhorod^{15, 16}. The valley remains a place of annual hierarchical services: on 15 August 2025 a council of hierarchs headed by Metropolitan Serhiy of Ternopil and Kremenets served at the place of the apparition, and at that service they blessed the crosses which the faithful had brought to the house¹⁷.