i86 ST. TRIPHON'S MONASTERY 



developed. The Holy Synod, after investigating the matter in 1886, 

 charged the Solovetzky Monastery with the restoration of the Pechenga 

 Monastery. 



A small band of Solovetzky monks, numbering eleven men, obedi- 

 ently following this call, set out with the blessings and prayers of 

 their own monastery ; and supplied with all ecclesiastical necessaries, 

 books, tools, and means of living, they arrived on the i6th July 1886, 

 at their destination in the " desolate wilderness," as the ancient his- 

 torian terms Lapland. 



It was decided to build the monastery on the spot where the 

 Holy Triphon died, and where the hermitage of the Assumption of 

 the Holy Virgin once stood. The Solovetzky brotherhood on their 

 arrival here, found the ancient church of the Purification of the Holy 

 Virgin, a clerical house of the same date, and two Laplanders' huts. 

 In October of the same year they laid the foundation for a building 

 containing ten cells. In July 1887 all the brotherhood were already 

 installed in their ncAV buildings. The dilapidated wooden church, 

 built in 1707 and containing only one altar and no stove or ceiling, 

 was repaired as far as possible before other buildings were started. 

 That church with difficulty could hold forty people. 



And yet only ten years after the restoration of the Monastery of 

 St. Triphon was begun — on the i6th July 1896, the wilderness had 

 become a flourishing spot. 



A new large and spacious church has been built of timber, with 

 three altars, decorated inside with much care, and richly provided 

 with all church utensils and a sacristy. A parish-church school, 

 supported by monastery funds, has been opened, where twenty boys 

 are taught ; workshops are established for carpentering, carving, gild- 

 ing, for locksmiths, fishing-net makers, and joiners — just like in a 

 monastery of old standing; nineteen dwelling-houses and sixteen 

 other buildings have been erected ; a large farmyard is established ; 

 the land has been cleared for meadows yielding 5000 poods of hay, 

 gardening has been introduced ; a good road to the sea has been 



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