Mhar Monastery

Transfiguration Monastery at Mhar'

The Mharsky or Mgarsky Monastery (Russian: Мгарский монастырь, Ukrainian: Мгарський монастир, Mharskiy monastir) was founded in 1619 on the bank of the Sula River near Lubny (Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) by Isaia Kopynsky (who later became the Metropolitan of Kiev) and Princess Rayina Vyshnevetska (cousin of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla) as a bratstvo designed to become a bulwark of Orthodoxy in the eastern part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Ukrainian Baroque katholikon was erected in the 1680s with the help of a generous grant from Hetmans Ivan Samoylovych and Ivan Mazepa. The seven-domed church with six piers was designed by a German architect who had worked on the Trinity Cathedral in Chernihiv. The number of domes was reduced to five after the central cupola had collapsed in 1728. A free-standing Neoclassical bell tower was started in 1785 but was not completed until 60 years later.

The monastery grounds contain the graves of several Kievan metropolitans. It was there that Yurii Khmelnytsky took the tonsure and St. Athanasius III Patelaros (an ecumenical patriarch) died and was buried.

After 1925 the monastery was occupied by the leaders of the Lubny Schism, then housed a succession of institutions for children, including a Young Pioneer camp, until the monks were allowed to return there in 1993.