St. Nicholas's male skete

St. Nicholas's male skete stands in the village of Lesovichi in the Kyiv region, in the Bila Tserkva Diocese, and is a skete of Sts. Regal Martyrs' Monastery¹.

Until 2010 the site held a village parish in honour of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos¹. According to the monastery's own tradition, back in the days of Yaroslav the Wise, when Lesovichi was called Sambir, a male cave monastery in honour of St. Nicholas stood there; after it was destroyed by Tatar raiders, its monks moved to Bohuslav and founded a monastery of the same name there^{1, 2}. It was in honour of that ancient monastery that the newly founded skete was likewise named after St. Nicholas¹.

On 22 May 2010, by the blessing of Mytrofan, Archbishop of Bila Tserkva and Bohuslav, the parish was transformed into this male skete^{1, 2}.

Today an unfinished church - just its walls - stands on a hill outside the village; its narthex has been roofed over and services are held there. The brethren live in temporary quarters built inside those same walls and continue fitting out cells above the small church².

On 8-9 October the skete's brethren, together with pilgrims from Bila Tserkva, local parishioners and pupils of the Lesovichi school, planted an apple orchard - about 1,000 saplings of 5 varieties, with the support of the village head; the brethren later gave 50 of the saplings to the school³.