Treasures of Russia’s Most Picturesque Monastery

Russia Beyond ^ | 1/29/20 | William Brumfield

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Historian and architectural expert William Brumfield discovers the St. Nilus Stolobensky Monastery in Lake Seliger.

The St. Nilus Stolobensky Monastery sits on the small Stolobny Island in Lake Seliger, near the town of Ostashkov in Tver Region. The monastery possesses a special lyrical appeal in the midsummer, when the shores are fringed with reeds and water lilies. Russian photographer and chemist Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (see box text below) took some of his most breathtaking photographs here in Summer 1910. My own photographic work dates from August 2016.

Nilova Pustyn, St. Nilus Stolobensky Monastery. Southeast view from Lake Seliger. Center: bell tower & Epiphany Cathedral; Church of St. Nilus, Archbishop's Landing. August. 23, 2016.
William Brumfield

St. Nilus Stolobensky Monastery. Southeast view from east cape of Stolobny Island. Summer 1910.
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky

The last wish of a saint

The monastery’s guiding spirit, the monk Nilus (Nil in Russian), was born in the Novgorod region in the late 15th century. Orphaned at an early age, he entered the Kripetsky Monastery near Pskov and took the name of St. Nilus of Sinai, a 5th-century Byzantine monastic and theologian. In 1515, with his abbot’s blessing he went into the deep forest for a more rigorous form of monastic isolation.

Word of Nilus’s saintly reputation spread, and he was visited by those who sought his blessing and prayers. After 13 years in the forest, Nilus followed God’s voice (according to the saint’s life story) and in 1528, made his way to an uninhabited island nestled in one of the many inlets of Lake Seliger.

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Wow!!! Extraordinary!!

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Wow

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Prokudin-Gorskii Collection
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/