Koretsky Monastery

The Holy Trinity Koretsky Convent is located in the town of Korets above the Korchik River, 33 km from the city of Novograd-Volynsky, Rivne region of Ukraine.

The monastery was founded in the first half of the 17th century by Prince Samuel Koretsky at the request of his relative abbess of the Holy Resurrection Monastery Seraphim (Yarmolinskaya), since her monastery could no longer accommodate all the inhabitants.

At that time, Western, and in Ukraine particular Volhynia, was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, states whose population overwhelmingly professed Catholicism. A union was imposed on the Orthodox population. The church people rejected the union and fought it. Orthodox nobles, hierarchs and clerics, church fraternities, philistines in cities, peasants in villages, disenfranchised and entrenched, but devoted to the Orthodox faith, stood up to fight the union. The Union was also considered by the state highest church authority of the Commonwealth as a transitional step towards Catholicism. Inoki and inokini true adherents of the Orthodox faith fled to few monasteries that kept the Orthodox confession longer than others: to the Pochaev Lavra and to the newly founded Holy Trinity Koretsky Convent.

But several monasteries were unable to resist state policy, and at the end of the 17th century, the patron saint (patron) of the Holy Trinity Monastery, Prince Jan-Karl Koretsky, who converted to Catholicism, transferred the monastery to Franciscan nuns. Orthodox sisters huddled in the old Holy Resurrection Monastery.

In 1831, after Poland became part of Russia at the end of the 18th century, the Catholic Franciscan monastery burned down, and its ruins were transferred to the military department of the Russian government.

Only in 1867, at the request of Abbess Apollinaria, the ruins of the Holy Trinity Monastery were returned to Orthodox Christianity. The restoration of all the buildings of the monastery, and above all the cathedral church in honor of the Holy Trinity, quickly began. Construction work under the abbess Feofania (Sventsitskaya) ended. In 1880, Archbishop Dimitri of Volyn and Zhytomyr (Muretov; † 1883) consecrated the Holy Trinity Cathedral.

The revered icon "The Debater of the Sinners" has been in the monastery since 1622. According to local tradition, every Sunday after vespers, an akathist is performed in front of the icon in the church and every year, on Thursday at Trinity Week, the icon is celebrated.

Icon "Debater of sinners"

In 1989, the Holy Trinity Koretsky Women's Stavropegic Monastery numbered 110 nuns. The economy of the monastery was maintained in an exemplary manner, which affected the leadership of the abbess abbess Natalia. As a guest of honor, she took part in the work of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1971.

Housework makes up a necessary addition to the sisters' main monastic feat. Replacing each other, they carry obedience in the temple as readers, singers. Of particular note is the gold-shale art, which the sisters of the monastery improved from year to year. Their work has been repeatedly exhibited at international exhibitions.

The monastery community at that time maintained the kindest relations with the neighboring state farm, participated in agricultural work.

The monastery receives pilgrims and guests, including from abroad, and participates with dignity in strengthening the Peace Fund.

In October 1980, the 100th anniversary of the restoration of the monastery was solemnly celebrated. For this anniversary, His Holiness Patriarch Pimen of Moscow and All Russia awarded the Holy Trinity Koretsky Convent the Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir of the І degree, and the abbess of the monastery, Abbess Natalia for tireless work on the improvement of the monastery and maternal care for his inhabitants - the Order of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir of the ІІ degree.