St. John the Baptist Monastery, Kazan

The Monastery of St. John the Baptist (Ioanno-Predtechensky Monastery) is an active Orthodox monastery for men in the historic centre of Kazan, in the Vakhitovsky district, at the very start of Bauman Street, facing the Spasskaya Tower of the Kazan Kremlin. One of the oldest monasteries in Tatarstan, it was founded in the 1560s by Saint Herman, Archbishop of Kazan, and today belongs to the Kazan diocese.

History

The monastery appeared around 1564–1568 as a town residence (podvorye) of the Sviyazhsk Assumption Monastery, which Saint Herman had also founded. Its dedication to John the Baptist is linked to the fact that he was the patron saint of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Until 1595 the community had no abbot of its own.

The first buildings were wooden and burned down completely in 1649. The Moscow merchant Gavrila Fyodorovich Antipin, who owned a house in Kazan next to the monastery, rebuilt it in brick at his own expense. In 1652 the new buildings were consecrated by Metropolitan Cornelius of Kazan and Sviyazhsk. Antipin's time gave the monastery the unheated three-tented Church of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, with side chapels of John the Baptist and John the Apostle; the heated five-domed Church of the Presentation (Vvedenskaya); a free-standing bell tower joined to the church by stone chambers; and a gate church of Saints Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves in the wall facing the Kremlin.

In the 18th century an icon with a particle of the relics of Saint Herman was brought from Sviyazhsk to the Church of the Presentation. On 3 September 1815 the great Kazan fire destroyed 1,179 houses and almost the whole monastery together with its archive; only the furnishings of the heated church and a venerated icon survived. The unheated church was rebuilt by 1818, the bell tower was joined to it by monks' cells, and on 24 June 1819 the church was consecrated again.

In 1887 a new three-tented cathedral was laid down to a design by the architect G. B. Rush, twice as tall and spacious as the old one; the construction was supervised by P. M. Tyufilin and V. V. Suslov. The abbot's building was also put up to Tyufilin's design at the end of the 19th century.

Soviet period and revival

After the revolution the monastery was closed. The cathedral stood until the 1930s and was then pulled down, while the other buildings housed offices and institutions, among them the Society for the Protection of Monuments. In 1992 the complex was returned to the Kazan diocese and restoration began; in 1994 the Church of the Presentation reopened.

What to see

What survives of the old ensemble is the Church of the Presentation, decorated with lace-like window surrounds of moulded brick, and the abbot's building, now the residence of the bishops of Kazan. The monastery's relics and icons include an icon of John the Baptist with a particle of his relics, the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God, the "Inexhaustible Cup" icon and a particle of the relics of Saint Herman, the founder. The monastery is active: services are held, and it runs a Sunday school and charitable work.

Getting there

The monastery stands at 1 Bauman Street, at the foot of the Kremlin hill, right in front of the Spasskaya Tower. It is easy to visit together with the Kremlin and the pedestrian Bauman Street.