Peryn Skete

The Peryn Skete of the Nativity of the Mother of God stands where the Volkhov River flows out of Lake Ilmen. Prince Vladimir, who baptized Rus in Kyiv in 988, had reformed the hierarchy of the pagan gods 8 years earlier, when he was still a pagan, making Perun the chief deity and ordering a sanctuary to be built near Lake Ilmen. In pre-Christian times, Peryn was the site of a sanctuary of Perun, god of thunder and lightning. Documents from 980 describe a huge idol carved from a single oak trunk at its centre. In 989 Veliky Novgorod was baptized by St. Bishop Joachim of Korsun: the sanctuary was destroyed, the wooden statue of Perun was thrown into the Volkhov River, and a worship cross was placed on the site. Joachim also built a wooden Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, traditionally dated to 995; it stood for about 200 years. A monastery was probably founded at the same time, although the chronicles first mention it in 1386, among monasteries burned by the Novgorodians themselves as the army of Moscow Prince Dmitry Donskoy approached. The stone Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God dates from the 30s of the 13th century. Its surviving core is pre-Mongol masonry of limestone and thin plinth bricks set in lime mortar mixed with crushed brick. The cross crowning the church is a “dome cross with crescent,” a form typical of the pre-Mongol period and derived from the “flowering cross” or “vine cross” (“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener,” Gospel of John, 15:1). The crescent beneath the cross is therefore a stylized vine, unrelated to Islamic symbolism, and has several Christian interpretations. In 1528 a wooden refectory with a Trinity Church, the island’s second church, was built at Peryn. During the Swedish occupation of 1611–1617 the monastery was burned and looted. The 1615 inventory still mentions the Trinity Church, but by 1617 it disappears from the records: the Church of the Nativity was ruined, there were no cells or fence, and only one elder, Maksim, remained with a blessing cross and five books. In 1634 a royal charter attached the neglected monastery to St. George’s Monastery. Catherine II’s church and land reform of 1764 transferred church lands to the state and closed more than half the monasteries. Of 953 monasteries in Great Russia, 224 remained state-supported in 3 classes and 161 remained self-supporting. The number of monks fell from 12444 to 5105, and church income dropped by more than 3 times. Peryn Monastery was abolished; its church became a parish church, while all other buildings were dismantled and moved to St. George’s Monastery. The revival of Peryn and the flourishing of St. George’s Monastery are associated with Archimandrite Photius (Spassky) (1792–1838). While still a hieromonk in St. Petersburg, he opposed mysticism spreading among educated society. For these views he was transferred to Novgorod in 1821, and in 1822 became archimandrite of St. George’s Monastery, remaining there until his death. With major support from his spiritual daughter, Countess Anna Alexeyevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya, he restored the monastery. The influence of the mystics weakened after their patron, Minister of Spiritual Affairs Prince Golitsyn, was removed, and largely ceased in 1825 when the deeply religious Emperor Nicholas I came to the throne. At Photius’s request, the Church of the Nativity was again assigned to St. George’s Monastery. Its walls were thoroughly repaired and repainted inside and out, a large western extension, new floor and dome were added, and the church was consecrated in 1828, when a skete was founded here. Its first head was Hieromonk Anikita, in secular life Prince S. A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov. In the late 30s and early 40s of the 19th century, red-brick monks’ quarters, small residences for the skete head and the St. George’s archimandrite, two service buildings, a monastery wall, and a belfry “on two stone pillars with 6 small bells” were built. The ancient monastic rule was strictly observed. Women were allowed to visit only once a year, on the feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, 8(21) September. Today “skete” means a small, secluded monastery with an especially strict rule, often attached to a larger monastery for solitary prayer and ascetic practice. Originally, however, “Skete” was a proper name for a desert near Alexandria in Egypt, where thousands of monks lived from the 4th to the 7th century. In August 1919 the provincial Congress of Soviets ordered monasteries in Novgorod Province to close. The last monasteries in the USSR were liquidated on the night of 18 February 1932, but monasteries reappeared with territories annexed in 1940—Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus—and some reopened during the war in occupied areas and for a time after it. Peryn Skete was looted and closed. The use of its buildings in the 20s is unknown; in the 30s a fishing cooperative worked on the island. The southwestern service building, belfry and wall were dismantled for brick, which was used to build a large ice store, while the church became a warehouse. During the war of 1941–1945 the front line ran along the Volkhov. The skete lay in occupied territory but had no permanent garrison; Spanish allies of Germany were stationed 2 km away at St. George’s Monastery. Memoirs record that the occupiers forced Russian women to saw for firewood the huge pines planted by monks under Archimandrite Photius. After the war, a branch of the Novgorod fish-processing plant operated on the island until it was replaced by a tourist centre in the 60s. A causeway was built, tourist cabins appeared among the pines, and the ice store became a boat station with a dance floor on its roof. The ancient monastery turned into a recreation site and was even “decorated” for tourists with a wooden statue of Perun. Excavations on Peryn Hill had begun before the war, including work by the Novgorod Museum in 1933, although the results were not published. Archaeological excavations in 1951–1952 under A. V. Artsikhovsky uncovered traces of the pagan sanctuary.