Solovky Islands - Islands of Controversy

info: www.domuspatris.net

The Solovetsky Islands, located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, 160 kilometres from the Arctic Circle, have been the setting of the famous Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex. It was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp (1921--1939), which served as a prototype for the GULAG system. Then the buildings were then transformed into a naval base.

The Orthodox Church reestablished the monastery in 1992, the year when the ensemble was included into UNESCO's World Heritage List.

The Solovetsky Islands are now a place of memory and of prayer, they could become a fashionable tourist resort rather than a centre renowned for its profound spiritual dimension.

The Solovetsky Monastery was founded in the second quarter of the 15th century by two monks, Gherman and Savvatiy (Sabbatius), from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, the most important of Northern Russia at the time.

The monastery quickly enlarged its estate and extended its producing and commercial activity, becoming an economic and political center of the White Sea. Its activity included saltworks, seafood production, trapping, fishery, mica works, ironworks, etc..

The existing stronghold and its major churches were erected in stone during the early reign of Ivan the Terrible at the behest of St. Philip of Moscow. In mid-17th century, at the time of the Schism of the Russian Church, the monks staunchly stuck to the faith of their fathers and expelled the tsar's representatives from the Solovki, suffering from 8 years of siege by the forces of Tsar Alexis.

Throughout the imperial period, the monastery was renowned as a strong fortress which repelled foreign attacks from the 16th century till the Crimean War in19th century.

Between the 16th and the early 20th centuries, the monastery was also a place of exile for the opponents of autocracy and official Orthodoxy and a center of Christianization in the north of Russia.

The monastery also had a huge depository of manuscripts and old books

Видео Solovky Islands - Islands of Controversy канала DomusPatris