Naturally the Monastery of the Miracles is closely associated with the more renowned of the wonder-working ikons of Russia. The most celebrated now existing there are: the trimorphic paper ikon of the Holy Trinity, that of St Nicholas the wonder-worker, and that of St Anastasia. In 1771, when Moscow was decimated by the plague, it was believed that the ikon of the Virgin (Bogoloobski) at the Varvarka Vorot wrought miraculous cures. It was so thronged by worshippers and the pestilent stricken that, as a measure of precaution, the Archbishop Ambrose ordered its immediate removal to the Chudov monastery, but the maddened people gathered in the Kremlin and threatened that they would not leave a stone of the monastery standing unless the ikon was at once restored. The Archbishop was forced to give way. The next day he was dragged by the mob from the Donskoi monastery where he was hiding and massacred by the enraged populace. This was on the 17th September: from that date the plague declined and the daily death-rate of 700 returned to the normal average with the advent of winter.

Flanking the eastern wall of the Chudov Monastery are the buildings of the Convent of the Ascension (Vossnesenski), the entrance to which is from the large square of the Kremlin near the Redeemer Gate. There are some indications that this nunnery is of greater antiquity than 1393, the date usually assigned its foundation. Eudoxia, the wife of Dmitri Donskoi, organised the institution, and, after taking the veil there, ordered that it was to be her place of sepulture also. The buildings were destroyed in 1483—ninety years after their erection—again in 1547, 1571, 1612, 1701, and last of all on the great fire of All Saints’ Day, 1737. Its successive rebuildings are due to the great veneration of the orthodox for the tombs of their ancestors, and from 1407 its cemetery ranked first as the place of sepulture for the consorts of the rulers of Muscovy; some thirty-five were interred within its walls between 1407 and 1738.

“It is said that when Eudoxia retired to the convent in 1389, although she observed the appointed fasts rigorously and within the walls wore heavy weights and performed arduous penances, she still took great interest in the affairs of the outer world, and when visiting dressed in rich robes befitting her former state. This gave rise to much scandal, which she refuted by exhibiting to her accusers the effects of her self-imposed penances. When Tokhtamysh destroyed the building in 1393 she not only devoted herself to the task of founding a better community, but did so much work among the sick and indigent that she more than retrieved her character, being worshipped almost as a saint and canonised under her adopted name of Euphrosina, revered through many generations.”

The cells are mean, and the low plain façade not unlike those of English alms-houses of the eighteenth century. It was in this nunnery that Maria Mniszek was housed prior to her marriage with the false Dmitri, and here, too, that Maria Nagoi was forced to recognise the same impostor as her own murdered son. The Cathedral of the Ascension, like that of St Michael in the Chudov, is of a primitive type, preserving many of the characteristics of the original building erected by the Tsar Vasili Ivanovich in 1518; the five domes have not, however, the common bulbous cupolas, these resemble inverted cups—an original type. The interior has the customary four pillars supporting the central dome; there is an ikonostas with four tiers reaching to the arched roof. Of the sacred pictures the most remarkable are that of the Virgin and that of the Ascension; there is also a curious one in the north chapel dedicated to Mary the Mother of the Afflicted.

The tombs of the Grand Duchesses are arranged along the frescoed walls, north, west and south; some are of the white stone used in the earliest buildings in Moscow, others of brick; formerly the portraits of those interred were painted on the walls over their tombs, now many are covered with splendidly worked palls of native design. The remains of Eudoxia (St Euphrosina) are in a modern shrine of silver, replacing that taken by the French; on the right, near the south wall, is the tomb of another Eudoxia (Shtrchnev), the wife of Mikhail Theodorovich; then come the tombs of the Miloslavski and Naryshkin, wives of his son the Tsar Alexis, and the last tomb of all is that of another Eudoxia, the much tortured first wife of Peter the Great. Four of the six, or more, wives of Ivan the Terrible also lie here. In the sacristy among many rich relics are two exquisitely decorated copies of the gospels; the enamel work and enrichment with gems is the most characteristic of the Russian art handicrafts. Not less excellent are the two golden processional crucifixes presented by the Tsar Michael. Such is the summer church of the convent, to which there is a grand ceremonial procession on Palm Sunday, and one on the second Sunday after Trinity to commemorate the great fire of 1737.

The winter church, dedicated to St Michael, is the chapel of Honour of St Theodore of Persia and was built in the eighteenth century only. In addition to a much venerated ikon of the virgin, painted in 1739, there is preserved one of the greatest antiquities of Moscow—a bas relief representing St George the Conqueror (Pobiedonostzev), the head uncovered, which originally was one of the decorations of the Redeemer Gate near by. It was transferred thence to the Church of St George, which was destroyed by the fire of 1737, a conflagration that threatened the convent also, but was stayed by the miraculous ikon of the Virgin of Kazan, now placed in the adjoining new church of St Catherine the Martyr. This is a modern building on the site of a fine old church of the seventeenth century, and of a Russified-Gothic style serves to show, from an artistic point of view, how disastrous is the attempt to combine native designs with those of the west. On the ground floor of the western range of buildings are the ovens, etc., where the Holy Bread is prepared, and the nuns of the convent are celebrated throughout Russia for the excellence of their work with the needle and brush, their copies of the ikons of these churches being in particular request.

The monasteries outside the Kremlin have much the character of small fortified towns, and are the stronger and, architecturally, the more interesting the greater the distance at which they are situated from the town. To visit them, drive out to the Simonov—four miles from the centre of the town—and pass the Krutitski Vorot and the Novo Spasski; the Spasso-Andronievski and the Pokrovski on the return. On the south side of the river to the Danilovski and the Donskoi; to the west the Zachatievski and Novo Devichi. The others, of minor interest are:—Monasteries of St Nicholas, Epiphany, Znamenski, Petrovski, Srietenka, and Alexis; Convents: St Nikita, Rojdestvenka, and Strastnoi.

Simonov Monastery

St Sergius founded the monastery in 1370, but it was not moved to its present site on a hill commanding the Moskva until twenty years later. It educated St Jonah in the fifteenth century, and when he became Metropolitan it increased in importance, but was later surpassed by the Troitsa, and although it owned 12,000 souls—male serfs—in the eighteenth century, it has never attained the leading position, nor even that expected of it. The present walls were built during the reign of Theodore I. but, finished in 1591, they could not keep out the Poles, who completely sacked the monastery in 1612. It is a line, strong looking, dreamy old place, somewhat dilapidated and overgrown with verdure. The wall is half a mile long, commanded by wonderful spire-like towers, some 130 feet high, crowned with two-storeyed domed watch rooms, which look like huge dovecots. There is a covered rampart walk all round, and from the tower near the river, a subterranean passage to the Lizin Prud, a holy well at one time much visited by the sick who had faith in its miraculous healing properties. Some six churches are within its walls, one the Cathedral of the Assumption, a massive building, consecrated in 1405, and having a somewhat bizarre appearance, its façade, in the Byzantine style, being also painted in three colours to represent quadrangular facets. It is a building quite foreign to Muscovite style; reminiscent rather of the old country churches of Portugal. The ikon of greatest celebrity is that of God the Father, richly decorated, and once, it is said, blessed by St Sergius, when it was carried with the troops of Dmitri against the Tartars under Mamai.