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FERAPONTOV
MONASTERY
BRIEF
HISTORICAL
ESSAY
K
irillo-Belozerski and Ferapontov monasteries were closely c o n n e c
ted from their very foundation. Monk Ferapont, the founder o f F e
rapontov monastery, came to Lake Beloye area from Simonov m o n
astery together with Kirill in 1397. They settled together
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the bank o f lake
Siverskoye. He left Kirill a year later however and founded his own monas
tery twenty kilometers to the north-east of Kirillov amidst picturesque land
scape
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a low hill between lakes Borodavskoye (Ferapontovskoye today)
and Paskoye. Ferapont did not stay long in Lake Beloye area; 10 years later
he was summoned by Prince Andrei Dmitrievich, younger brother o f Mo s
cowGrand Prince Vasili, to Mozhaisk to found there a new monastery known
today as Luzhetski.
By the time of Ferapont's departure the monastery still remained a h um
ble abode numbering nearly one and a half dozen monks and yielding to
Kirillov monastery which was already accumulating wealth. The more i n
tense growth of Ferapontov monastery was to come later, in the middle of
the XVI century, under Martinian, a prominent church official. While e n
joying authority in ecclesiastical circles he also participated in political af
fairs. In 1447 Prince Vasili II the Dark visited Ferapontov monastery and
was blessed by Martinian to undertake a campaign against Dmitri Shemiaka
who had seized Moscow. In gratitude for this support Vasili arranged for
him to become Father Superior of Trinity-Sergius monastery.
Martinian was a very intellectual person. Since the time when he was
Father Superior of Ferapontov monastery, it became an important book-
writing cen ter,
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the same level with Kirillov. The following episode is very
significant. In 1489 Novgorod Archbishop Gennad i, who was in need of
ecclesiastical books which were rare at that time for his struggle against
heretics, applied to Ferapontov monastery for them. Martinian who was
buried in the monastery in 1483 and sanctified around 1550 was later c o n
sidered to be the patron saint of the monastery together with Ferapont.
A few o ther prominent church officials came from Ferapontov mon a s
tery. Among them Rostov Archbishop loasaf, descending from a noble fam
ily of Obolenski and a monk of Ferapontov monastery in the past, is assoc i
ated with the beginning of stone construction in the monastery. The return
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