The Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery.
To the northeast of Vologda, on the picturesque left bank of the river of the same
name in the place of a steep bend of its bed, there is a magnificent architectural ensemble
of medieval Rus. This is the Spaso-Prilutsky Demetrius male Monastery, one of the largest
monasteries of the Russian North. Situated "on many roads that ran from Vologda to the
Northern Ocean," it was once about five km from the city of Vologda, and now, is included in
the city limits and is a city monastery. The monastery was founded by the Reverend Dimitriy
Prilutsky, a renowned Russian saint.
Spiritual associate of Reverend Sergius of Radonezh, he was a native of Yaroslavl region,
hegumen of Nikolsky monastery in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky.
The architectural ensemble of Spaso-Prilutsky monastery is completely preserved to this day. The territory of the monastery is surrounded by defensive walls with towers built in the XVII-XVIII centuries. In the XVI-XVII centuries, the monastery entered the period of its greatest prosperity. Its importance as a northern military-strategic and commercial outpost of the Moscow principality after Dmitry Donskoy was well recognized by all subsequent Moscow princes and tsars, who did not abandon the Holy monastery with their care and benevolence. Thanks to the spiritual authority of the Reverend Dimitrii, the monastery developed and prospered rapidly, as confirmed by historical documents and the writings of local historians before the October 1917 Revolution times. It was one of the biggest northern Russian monasteries. Its abbots played an important role in the church and national life of Russia, becoming actual actors in important historical events.
A special page in the history of the monastery is the highest rate of visitation of Grand dukes, tsars, and emperors for a pilgrimage. In December 1528, under Abbot Misaila, the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery was visited by the barren spouses of Grand Duke Vasily III and Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya, who prayed to Reverend Demetrius for the gift of an heir. Grand Duchess Elena placed an embroidered shroud on the shrine of Reverend Demetrius. As is known, in 1530 she has born a son, the future tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible).
In May of 1545, Ivan the Terrible himself visited the Spaso-Prilutsk monastery and prayed in the newly constructed, with his assistance, Cathedral of the All-Merciful Savior. Already in 1541, he released the monastic estates from all taxes to the State treasury for five years, giving the Abbot Afanasii a sovereign charter. All in all, Ivan the Terrible had given the monastery 16 grant charters. In the autumn of 1824, Emperor Alexander I visited Vologda. The last sovereign visit to the monastery was on July 31, 1913, when the Grand Duchess Elisabeth Fedorovna arrived in Vologda on the way from Arkhangelsk.
For several centuries, the monastery had book and icon painting workshops. In other workshops, the monks were engaged in woodcarving, blacksmithing, carpentry, and bookbinding. The monastery was considered one of the richest in the Vologda region. Wealthy people gave the monastery lands, money, and church items. Contributors and their relatives were recorded in the monastery's synodic for eternal remembrance. Together with the grants of the princes and the acquisitions of the monastery itself, the contributions constituted a considerable monastic economy. The monastery had commercial trades, farming, and mills, received a privilege for fishing in neighboring rivers and lakes, for haymaking, and wood-cutting on the River Sukhona. At the salt mines on the river Una in Arkhangelsk province annually collected more than 224 tons of salt. Enjoying customs privileges, the monastery conducted a duty-free trade in salt in the North Dvina region, having salt outposts in Moscow, Kholmogory, and Vologda.
Following the Reverend of St. Demetrius, the brethren helped the needy. In addition to the cells, the refectory, and the cookhouse, the monastery had a free and cheap inn, where they received and fed the strangers. In the surviving documents of the monastery's archive, there is information about buying food for prisoners in prison and clothes for the almshouse, about distributing money for the burial of beggars. The monastery also contributed to the liberation of Russia from the Poles. The monastery gave funds to equip the army, donating many silver vases from the tsar's contributions. Here Russian musketeers and detachments of men of the militia of Prince Demetrius Pozharsky received their pay and meals. Monks sent candles and lanterns to illuminate Vologda in time of siege.
The monastery experienced tragic pages of its history during the Trouble Time. It suffered greatly from Poles, Lithuanians, Cossacks, and Tatars in 1612-1619. The brethren suffered and the church property and the treasury were looted. During the monastic reform of Catherine the Great in 1764, Savior-Prilutsky Monastery, the first and only in the Vologda region, was marked as a second class. From 1764 to 1918, the brethren received a corresponding state allowance: 1250 roubles of silver for 17 members of the brethren. But by the XIX century after the reforms carried out and the deprivation of the monastery of economic independence, the monastery suffered material losses. The monastery experienced material need, the ancient temples and buildings were dilapidated, the number of brethren was 12 people. The looks of the state of the monastery created a depressing impression.
The feature of the monastery in the XIX century was the fact that the management of the monastery was blessed by the rectors of the theological seminary and the vicar bishops. At the end of the XIX century, the monastery housed an orphanage and a municipal school. Under Archimandrite Anatoly (Smirnov) of that time in the Savior-Prilutsky Monastery, the temples were renovated. The walls and stone towers of defensive structures were painted in an unusually bright color, partially recreated today. After the closure in the mid-1920s, all the monastery's churches were in disrepair. Legend has it that in 1503, having successfully completed the Kazan campaign, Grand Prince Ivan III sent to the monastery a renovated, richly decorated with a gold and silver hagiographic icon of Demetrius the Wonderworker, painted by renowned Moscow iconographer Dionysius. It was worshipped in the monastery as miraculous, and every year on that day there was a procession from the city to the monastery and back. The ruling hierarch served a liturgy and performed a prayer service to the monk. In 1924 the icon was requisitioned and handed over to the local history museum, where it remains to this day.
On August 29, 1990, the Priluki church community was given a part of the monastery buildings, and on the day of the Reverend Dimitrii's memory, in 1992, the monastery was completely returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. After the return to the bosom of the Church in the last decade of the 20th century, the restoration of the Savior-Prilutsky Monastery began. The monastery was repaired and the Cathedral of the Savior and the Church of St. Demetrius of Prilutsk were consecrated. During the 1950 - 1990s, the monastery was restored. The monastery regained its exterior beauty and glory of one of the most beautiful monastery ensembles of the Russian North. During this time, thanks to the asceticism and tireless work of the monks and their spiritual guides, the Savior-Prilutsky Monastery has created a gracious spiritual atmosphere, which invariably attracts to the monastery walls and churches an unceasing stream of believers, pilgrims, and pilgrims from all over Russia and neighboring countries and beyond.