The Holy Trinity and St. Sergey Convent
Sister Melanija welcomes us at the gate and, smiling heartily, invites us into the courtyard. It reminds of a quiet rural farmstead with fruit trees and garden plots, the management of which, as it turns out, is the responsibility of the Convent sisters. Cucumbers grow here best, says sister Melanija, noting that they have also sorrel in their beds, because there is an interesting tradition at the monastery: every Sunday they bring sorrel soup to the table. The courtyard and gardens are surrounded by carefully renovated buildings of the Convent and a church within them, letting us imagine a hundred-year-old past.
Sister Melanija first takes us to the Trinity Cathedral, next to the Convent, which was completed in 1907 after five years of construction. Our eyes are attracted and delighted by the gilded wood-carved iconostasis designed in a neo-Russian style. It was originally located in the St Nicholas Naval Cathedral (gifted by Emperor Nicholas II). In 1939, the iconostasis was brought from Liepaja and installed in Riga Nativity of Christ Cathedral. In the early 1960s, it was transported here.
In the plinth floor of the cathedral, there is the is the so-called lower chapel, which Melanija kindly shows us. The lower chapel, with the altar table in honor of the Dormition of the Mother of God is a kind of vault. Here, in the crypt beneath the Cathedral, the parents of the monastery’s founding sisters Mansurov, Boris Mansurov and Maria Mansurova are buried. In 1963, the Soviet authorities closed the Nativity of Christ Cathedral of Riga in Esplanade, the seat of the archiere was moved here and the Cathedral became the main Orthodox sanctuary.
We proceed to the two-story wooden houses built in 1893 for donated money, which include the residential complexes of the parishioners and the building of the Church. Among the donors, there were not only Rigans. For example, Emperor Alexander III donated 29,000 rubles to the Convent. On the first floor of the parishioners’ building, there is a kitchen and a dining room, and there are cells on the second floor. The nuns can enter the church through the corridors running from their cells. On 20 June 1893, the church was consecrated by Bishop Arseny in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
The site of the Convent was much larger at the time, covering the area today encompassed by Kr. Barona Street, Pērnavas Street, A. Čaka Street and Ērgļu Street, at that time known as Sergiy Street. Immediately after opening, the church gained popularity, so its volume was extended by constructing an extension, on the southern facade of which there is a carved kiot, or a frame for an icon, with the icon of “The Apparition of the Mother of God to the pure-hearted Sergius of Radonezh.” There is also a copy of the Miracle-Making Icon of the Mother of God of Tolga in the premises of the extension.
Sister Melanija has an amazing memory. She is presenting the history of the Convent with captivating enthusiasm, mentioning that after gaining independence in 1918, the Convent had to face the threat of nationalization. Representatives of the local authority had alienated land plots, buildings, facilities and church art objects. However, due to the Archbishop Jānis Pommers’ efforts, the Convent was not closed and later resumed its activities.
Under Khrushchev’s rule, the territory of the Convent was severely reduced by alienating its land. A multi-story residential houses were built around the monastery. In the late fifties and early sixties, the Soviet authorities made every effort to shut the Convent down. According to sister Melanija, the lease agreement was terminated, registration of new sisters was forbidden, candle production and baptism which represented a substantial part of the monastery’s income were curbed. It was only thanks to the forward-looking and relentless performance of Hegumene Magdalene and Mother Superior Tabita, that the monastery was saved.
In 1980s, when reconstruction of convents started in Russia (out of 100 convents in Russia, only 16 worked at the time), 19 monastery sisters went to Russia to become abbesses, thus the Convent on Kr. Barona Street has become the cradle of the revival of the Russian Nuns movement.
In 1892, at the time sisters Yekaterina and Natalia Mansurov were granted land for the construction of the Convent, this was the city outskirts where the “military gardens” were located. Today, this is a densely populated area, the so-called close center with intense traffic and hasty pedestrians. The monastery, in spite of revolutions, wars, changing political regimes, was able to stop the time in this small patch of land more than a century ago by creating and maintaining a tradition, an island of spirituality and household that has survived until now without a major change.
