Waterways of the Tsars: Sergiev Posad (10/10/2019)

Thursday, October 10, 2019
No included excursion today. We chose the all-day optional excursion "Sergiev Posad: Russia’s Greatest Monastery," which had a two-hour motor coach drive one way.

Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вр/Trinity Sergius Lavra Monastery
(founded 1340 by St Sergius of Radonezh, another patron saint of Russia)
with L-R Good Friday Tower (1640), Beautiful or Red Tower (1856) with
main entrance, and domes of the Gate Church of St John the Baptist (1693-1699)

The Chinese pigeon magnet

Main Gate with a fresco of St Sergius blessing two
monks to send them to the aid of Prince Dmitri Donskoy
to become victorious over the Mongol-Tatars in 1380

Fresco showing St Sergius as a hermit monk sharing bread with a bear

Here a father returns with a coffin to bury his dying son,
but St Sergius had restored his son to life

St Sergius began as a hermit monk and people came to him for spiritual guidance. He was soon joined by other monks and twelve together formed Trinity Monastery. As the monastery population grew, Sergius sent his monks to spread the gospel across central and northern Russia. Eventually 400 monasteries were founded in his name.

Refectory and Church of St Sergius (1686-1692)
was built with donations from Peter the Great

The Refectory, once the largest hall in Russia, with unique
exterior decorations looking like 3-D facets

Tile flooring imitates a carpet leading through the refectory to the church

The refectory is now full of icons, and ladies
who clean the dripped wax from around the candles

Before entering the church, there are a pair of iconostases fronted by what
appear to be a tombs; perhaps of an igumen/head of a monastery

The other iconostasis and tomb

Church of St Sergius Baroque iconostasis (1688),
decorated with gilded wood-carving, was brought in 1948
from the Moscow Church of St Nicholas the Big Cross

Icon of Our Lady of Kazan can be recognized
because the Christ child is standing to the R

Church of St Micah (1734) dedicated to a pupil of St Sergius

Palace of Metropolitans (16-18C) with a monk-priest approaching

Apparently the Russian Orthodox church has two categories of priests. Monk-priests are considered black clergy because of the color of their robes. They are primarily ordained to conduct the liturgy in monasteries and convents, and they are pledged to celibacy. White clergy are parish or secular priests, and because they serve the laymen, they are expected to marry.

Trinity Cathedral (1422-1423) is the oldest stone church
in the monastery and one of the oldest in the Moscow
region; it houses the tomb of St Sergius that had a long
queue of worshippers waiting to kiss the tomb

Church of the Holy Spirit (1476)

Chapel Over the Well (1872) was built over a well
discovered in 1644 when repairing a porch on
Assumption Cathedral; many pilgrims were healed
by this water and ...

... still today pilgrims come to fill
their containers with the holy water

Bell Tower (1741-1770) houses the largest
working bell (65 tonnes) in Russia

Assumption Cathedral (1559-1585)

Assumption Cathedral chandelier; the frescoes were
created in 1684 by 35 painters in 100 days

Tomb of St Innocent, known as the Apostle for America
because he brought the Russian Orthodox Church to Alaska

Assumption Cathedral Iconostasis (17C)

Woman in babushka/headscarf running the floor polisher

Tomb of Boris Godunov and his family; Boris is the only tsar
not to be buried in either the Moscow Kremlin Cathedral of the Archangel
or St Petersburg Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul

Boris Godunov, descended from a Tatar prince, was a member of the bodyguard of Ivan the Terrible. Ivan chose the sister of Boris to be the wife of his second son, Feodor. This event elevated Boris to the rank of Boyar, second only to the ruling princes. Ivan accidently killed his eldest son in a fit of rage, leaving Feodor as heir. Before Ivan died in 1584, he had appointed Boris as regent because he recognized Feodor was feeble in mind and body.
Ivan also had a third son, Dmitri, from his seventh marriage. Dmiti was not considered legitimate by the Russian Orthodox Church. Dmitri and his mother went to live in Uglich. There in 1591, Dmitri died at the age of ten under suspicious circumstances, supposedly while playing with a knife, he had an epileptic seizure and stabbed himself several times, or slit his throat. Boris Godunov was considered to be behind the death of Dmitri.
When Feodor died childless in 1598, Boris was elected the tsar, since Dmitri was dead and Boris had already had many years of ruling experience as regent. After Boris died in 1605, his son and widow were murdered by enemies of the Godunovs. Rumors began to circulate that Dmitri had escaped the assassination attempt, and the first of the pretenders stepped forward to claim the title of tsar. This "False Dmitri" ordered the bodies of the Godunovs be moved from the Moscow Kremlin and they were given this place of burial in Sergiev Posad.

Russian Orthodox Church cross type number one:
three cross bars, the top one represents the plate or scroll
described in St John's Gospel: "The King of Glory" in
Greek, or more recently as inscribed in Latin: INRI;
the center bar is the cross of the crucifixion, and the third
bar is the footrest that is slanted upward toward Heaven
on the right for the penitent thief on the neighboring cross,
and downward toward Hell for the non-penitent thief

Russian Orthodox Cross type number two: Since
Assumption Cathedral was built to commemorate
victory at Kazan over the Moslem Tatars by Ivan the
Terrible, he decreed the crescent be placed at the
bottom of the cross to signify the cross over the crescent

Today, some guides wish to be politically correct and state the crescent shape turns the cross into an anchor.

Monastic clergy can be identified by their wearing
the kobuk, a black stiff cylindrical hat with a veil

Our guide lead us out of the monastery, past vendor stalls into an underpass, then up to Pancake Hill, a panoramic platform.

Tamiko and Kent selfie with Trinity Sergius Lavra Monastery (KSS)

Tamiko finds a swing (KSS)

We walked back down the hill to a restaurant for lunch. Sliced brown bread and salad without dressing, followed by broiled fish and potatoes. Water, beer and soft drinks for beverages.
After lunch we had 45 minutes of free time.

Bust of Lenin that still stands close to the
monastery he ordered closed and turned
into a museum of architecture

A bigger full statue of St Sergius stands next to the wall of the monastery

Duck Tower (17C) that is supposed to be topped
by a stone duck; legend says that from this tower
Tsar Peter I would shoot ducks in White Pond

White Pond with a duck house in the center;
apparently no one has been shooting ducks since the last tsar!

Matryoshka doll created for the 700th
Anniversary (2014) of the birth of St Sergius

It is said that St Sergius often gave local children hand-made wooden toys. It is also said that the Russian nesting doll, the Matryoshka, was born here.
Finally it was time to board the motor coaches for the long ride back to Moscow and the Viking Truvor.
Next: Moscow: The Kremlin.