NOVO-SPASSKI MONASTERY

Micha Jelisavcic
John Sloan

This monastery was founded by Yuri Dolgoruki where the Danilov monastery is now. Then it was moved into the Kremlin in 1300 by Grand Prince Ivan I, Kalita on to the Borovitski hill where the Church of the Savior's Transfiguration was built. Then in 1490 the monastery was moved again, this time by Ivan III to the steep Krutitski hill by the Moscow River and on the Kolomna Road, where it became one of the defensive fortresses ringing the city. This why it became known as New- Savior's Monastery. In 1591 the fortress was attacked by the Crimean Tatars of Khazi Gerei. In 1612 Prince Pozharski and his troops swore to retake the Kremlin from the Poles. The existing fortification walls and towers date from the 17th century. The Spaso-Preobrazhensky (Transfiguration) Cathedral was built in 1640 by the Romanovs in the likness of the Assumption cathedral in the Kremlin. The Pokrovskaya (Intercession) Church dates from 1675. The Church of the Sign (Znamenia) dates from 1808. Nearby is the Krutitskoe Podvorie, the residence of the Metropolitan of Moscow from the 16th century. There is the Uspenski (Assumption) Cathedral and a fine Baroque gate tower.

Photographs and descriptions

	\Link	Description
		Corner tower of the Novo-Spaski Monastery outside the wall before restoration.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery outside wall view of corner tower. The former wooden walls were replaced in stone and brick by Tsar Mihail Feodorovich Romanov in 1640. After the revolution the monastery was used as a prison.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery outside rear wall.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery, Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Christ, 1645-49, was designed on the basis of the Uspenski Cathedral in the Kremlin. According to Patriarch Nikon this style best represented the spirit of Orthodoxy.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery, inside the walls. The monastery was a favorite of the first Romanovs. The father-in-law of Ivan IV of his first wife, Anastasia, the boyar Roman Yur'yevich Zakhar'yin-Koshkin, as well as her brother Nikita Romanovich, the father of Metropolitan Philaret, , and the princess Avgusta (nun Dosifei) - daugher of Elisabeth Petrovna and baron A.G. Razumovskii, all are buried in this cathedral.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery, Cathedral of the Transfiguration, one fortress tower and the Bell tower viewed from outside. Inside there are also the monk's cells (1642-44), the Pokrovski church (17th century), and the Church of the Sign given by the Sheremetev's 1791-95, by architect E. Nazarov, Nicholas the Wonderworker and the Monk Sergei Radonezhskii.
		Novo-Spaski Monasery, wall before restoration.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery, Bell tower, built in 1759-85 by architect I. Zherebtsov.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery, outside the wall before restoration.
		Novo-Spaski Monastery, outside the wall before restoration.

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