Sts. Regal Martyrs' Monastery

The men's monastery in honour of the Holy Regal Passion-Bearers stands on Church Hill, the rise that divides the villages of Kyslivka and Buda in the Tarashcha district of the Kyiv region¹. Buda was once called Monastyrka, and tradition holds that an ancient cave monastery stood here; local people point out the place where it was and the remains of the monastic ramparts, and sinkholes open on this ground that lead into blocked caves^{1, 3}.

The historian L. Pokhylevych recorded that there is a raised hill at Buda on which, by the tradition of the inhabitants, a men's Basilian monastery once stood, said to have been under the Kyiv-Sophia monastery or the metropolitan of Kyiv; in Pokhylevych's own day a large collapsed cellar was still visible on that spot, and nearby an ancient rampart ending at the village of Synytsia². By the same account, in 1790 there were 24 households in Kyslivka and 39 in Buda². The monastery adds that in the eighteenth century both villages belonged to the Kyiv-Sophia cathedral².

After the decline of the ancient house, the laity of Kyslivka and Buda were assigned to the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in neighbouring Kivshovata, a wooden three-domed church of oak with a linden iconostasis¹. It was laid in 1736 by the then priest of Kivshovata, Vovkobrun, but the local Polish authorities long hindered the building, and, as Pokhylevych notes, this church "could not have been finished before 1750"¹.

The church stood at Kivshovata until about 1850, and when it began to fall apart it was moved at the inhabitants' request, reassembled on the hill between the two villages and consecrated in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-Giving Spring"¹. A separate parish existed at Kyslivka from 1884, although in law the church was styled a cemetery and dependent chapel right up to the twentieth century; from that time the place came to be called Church Hill¹.

The church was raised not only on the means of the parishioners of Kyslivka and Buda but on substantial donations from "the tenant Mr Makhnovych"; besides that, one of the Kyiv banks held a capital in perpetual deposit of 500 roubles whose interest went to the Kyslivka church, the depositor wishing to remain unknown¹. The church was painted, held many icons and had two exits, one towards Kyslivka and the other towards Buda; from a distance its domes and the tall poplar that grew beside it were the first things to rise above the horizon¹.

In the 1930s the church was closed and a collective-farm store was made in it: grain and apples were brought in by cart, but the altar was not desecrated, since the grain was poured only as far as the solea¹. In the winter of 1943 the church was destroyed. By the monastery's account its bell tower was the highest point of the village and a German spotter was posted on it; a villager, Andrii Onyfatovych Mohyliak, went round the ravine from the side of Lukianivka, made his way through the forest to the Soviet troops and led them out by the same path onto open ground¹. The boards that were left, and even the stone foundation, were taken apart, and a bridge over the stream at the foot of Church Hill was built from the church's beams¹.

On 18 May 1994 the Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine blessed the opening of a parish at Kyslivka. The site of the destroyed church was by then a cemetery, so a plot was allotted for the new church on Church Hill nearby; nothing was yet known of the ancient cave monastery, but the link with the past was something they wished to keep³.

On the feast of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow", 6 November 1994, a church was fitted out in the adapted premises of a former shop and the first moleben was served; the choir of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra sang^{3, 6}. The eparchy counts the age of the house from that day⁸.

On 16 May 1996, before the laying of the foundation, a moleben was served led by Archimandrite Prokhor, superior of the Holy Trinity monastery Kytaiv Hermitage in Kyiv; on 18 May the foundation of a church of the Resurrection of the Lord was laid^{3, 5}. On 15 June the consecration took place, attended by the Bishop of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav, a choir from Bila Tserkva and the priests of the deanery, and that same summer the bishop consecrated a memorial cross on the site of the future church^{3, 5}.

There was no money for the church, and the community put up a temporary wattle-and-daub building on the foundation: poles were cut in the meadow that summer, a wooden frame was raised, horses mixed clay with straw, and the walls were plastered and whitewashed³. The community lived by a monastic rule, making prayer ropes, wax candles and incense and buying building material with the proceeds; there was no housing, so they crowded into a builders' trailer, the refectory was outdoors and water was brought up Church Hill by horse³.

In 2000 the building of a residential block with cells, a refectory and a house church began⁵. In the same year, according to the "Excavations" page, the digging of the monastic caves began, although their existence had been learned of back in 1995, when a sinkhole opened in a villager's garden⁴. In the summer of 2001 the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God "of Rudosillia" was brought to the house and carried round Kyslivka and Buda, and the excavation was carried on with archaeologists of the "Underground Kyiv" group³. Two pages of the monastery's own site disagree on the figures: one gives an excavated passage 13 m long with a probable continuation to 30 m, the other 15 m out of a total of about 33^{3, 4}.

The archaeologists read the cave as a monastic one⁴. To the right of the entrance, at about a metre's height, is a ledge with particles of ash which is interpreted as a monastic kitchen; beside it an arcosolium, a place for brief rest on which it is impossible to lie at full length, a practice the source traces to Athos^{3, 4}. Along the cave, set in a chessboard pattern, run niches for candles, and at the far end they are placed only on the western side, so that one praying eastward had light on the book^{3, 4}. On the eastern wall two Golgotha crosses and the inscription "Manuil" can be made out, possibly the name of the monk who dug the cave or laboured in it^{3, 4}. The ventilation shaft, by the monastery's account, was pierced with the help of an ordinary mole⁴.

Three years after the building of the block began, in 2003, a small church in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" was raised beside it; the consecration took place on 30 October, and the Divine Liturgy was led by the Bishop of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav^{3, 5, 8}. From then on 6 November became for the house not merely a feast but its patronal day⁸. From 2004 a Sunday school worked on Church Hill, an icon-painting workshop opened in the same year, and in November 2004 the liturgy in the new church began to be served daily^{3, 21}.

In 2006, after a decade's interruption, building resumed on the large two-storey Resurrection church on the foundation laid in 1996; the following year the first floor was raised under a temporary roof⁵. In August 2007 the blocked cave passages on the monastery's ground at Buda were cleared³.

In the spring of 2009 the temporary roof was removed and the second storey begun⁵, and on 18 May 2010 the secretary of the eparchy consecrated the cupola cross of the two-storey church, after which the cupola and the cross were set in place⁷.

The Tarashcha district has belonged to the Bila Tserkva eparchy since the eparchy was created: on 29 July 1994 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church separated it from the Kyiv eparchy and included the Tarashcha district in it⁹. On 23 September 2008 the Synod, having heard the report of the Archbishop of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav, blessed the opening of a women's monastery in honour of the Holy Regal Martyrs in the village of Kyslivka, Tarashcha district, by Journal No. 80¹⁰. The next act concerning this house the Synod passed on 6 December 2019: by Journal No. 32 it reorganised that women's monastery into a men's monastery in honour of the Holy Regal Passion-Bearers seated in the village of Buda in the same district^{11, 12}. In the report of the Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for 2020 this reorganisation is given as the only one of the reporting period¹².

From 22 May 2010, by the blessing of the Archbishop of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav, a St Nicholas men's skete of the house was arranged at the parish of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Lesovichi^{13, 14}. The eparchy relates that in the days of Kyivan Rus a men's monastery of St Nicholas stood at Lesovichi, and that after its destruction the monks moved to Bohuslav and founded a new house there, which is why the new skete was named after the same saint¹⁴.

The house also has a metochion of the martyrs Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia at Tarashcha and the Zolotske St Onuphrius hermitage³. At the hermitage, on 25 June, the feast of St Onuphrius the Great, the Divine Liturgy was served for the first time in the open air, the place of worship having been consecrated beforehand, and an icon of the saint was painted for the feast in the monastery's icon-painting workshop¹⁵.

On the patronal feast of 6 November a cross procession goes from the monastery about four kilometres to the site of the ancient cave house at Buda, where a memorial litia is served for the reposed brethren^{8, 16, 17}. In 2016 the Metropolitan of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav served the litia there for the monk Manuil and all the brethren who laboured on that spot¹⁶; in 2018 he served there a moleben to the Mother of God and a litia for the brethren of the ancient house, and by the monastery gates consecrated an icon of the Mother of God "Swift to Hearken"¹⁷.

On 17 July, the feast of the Holy Regal Passion-Bearers, the services are held on the very site of the ancient cave house at Buda: in 2019 and in 2021 the Metropolitan of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav served the Divine Liturgy there in the open air^{18, 20}. In November 2020 the cupola crosses for a chapel-ossuary were consecrated on that site¹⁹, and in July 2021 a memorial litia was served in the chapel itself, where the remains of monks buried on this ground many centuries ago are gathered²⁰.

The monastery's icon-painting workshop writes icons in the canonical style and gives icon-painting lessons to all comers at the church "Joy of All Who Sorrow"; some of the work is shown at Orthodox exhibitions in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine²¹. In 2013 the ruling bishop, visiting the monastery, looked over this icon-painting school as well²². The house corresponds with prisoners in the colonies and sends them food, articles of first necessity, clothing, footwear and medicines²³.