Khutyn monastery

The history of the monastery is closely connected with the name of Elder Varlaam Khutynsky, who is one of the most revered saints in the north of Russia. According to legend, the place where the monastery appeared was considered “thin”, where evil forces ruled. Varlaam managed to banish evil spirits through prayer and built the Church of the Transfiguration. Today, the Khutyn Monastery is a beautiful monument of religious architecture of the XVI-XIX centuries.

The life of the Khutyn monastery is shrouded in numerous legends and legends. For example, in 1462 Tsar Ivan III came to the monastery to venerate the holy relics. The emperor began to extort from the abbot why the arks with relics were closed and proposed to open them so that any person could touch the shrines. At the moment when they began to dig the tomb of St. Barlaam, a pillar of fire struck from the ground. In terror, the king fled from the church, and pillars of fire continued to burst out of the ground. Ivan III left the monastery in great fear, and the staff left by him and the burnt door of the altar were kept for a long time in the sacristy of the monastery.

Now on the territory of the Khutyn monastery there is a hill, on top of which there is a chapel of Varlaam Khutynsky, and not far from the walls of the monastery there is a holy spring. In the main monastery church of the Transfiguration the relics of St. Varlaam are kept, and the ashes of the great Russian poet Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin, whose estate was located in the Novgorod province, are also buried.