Zaonikiev Bogoroditse-Vladimirsky friary is a monastery for men in the village of Luchnikovo, Vologda region, Vologda region. It is located near the village of Dubrovskoye.
I've wanted to visit this place for a long time, but somehow it kept taking me away from it. This time it did, and I was amazed...the former beauty of this monastery and its depressing condition.
The monastery was founded by peasant Hilarion in 1588, who was miraculously cured of blindness.
During the coming of Soviet government, like all Orthodox sites, the monastery was devastated and destroyed.
There were a lot of things here: exiled peasants lived, then airplanes were assembled, repaired and tested here before being sent to the war, then a school for mentally retarded orphans was opened...
The boarding school was transferred to another village (Utkino) only in 2018.
And only since 2019 it has been a monastery again.
It is sometimes interesting to study the history of some places, funny and surprising facts are revealed.
For example, one rector of one of the Vologda churches was an opponent of this monastery and dissuaded his parishioners from going to the Zaonikiev monastery.
And one day, as usual, he began to scold Joseph Zaonikievsky, then suddenly went blind. He was brought to this monastery, where he repented and regained his sight.
Another monk from another monastery also did not believe in the miracles of this monastery, and when his arm and leg were numbed, he prayed, was healed, and wrote a story about his healing with his own hand.
All in all, a miracle place in the truest sense of the word.