the Hellenic dialect after three years, but he himself did not teach anyone; by nature speaks, reads and writes Greek. He was tonsured into monasticism in 1773 by the Maya of the 9th Mount Sinai in the monastery of Preobrazhenskaya; obedience took place at the house of the Sinai mountains, Rev. Archbishop Kirill economically, - May 1773 from the 9th, - December 777 to the 26th, - and that year, the Right Reverend Kirill appointed him to the Kyiv-Greek monastery due to the old age of the then abbot Gregory, who was then the steward, and after the death of this Abbot Gregory, he was promoted to the late Right Reverend. Gabriel, Met. Kyiv, to this Kyiv-Greek monastery on March 10, 1783 as abbot, in which rank he still holds. The matter had nothing to do with him. He is 37 years old." Against the name, by the hand of the Right Reverend of Kyiv, it is noted: "He will henceforth be capable of obedience."
But considering all the circumstances, St. Synod by decree of July 16, 1786, addressed to Metropolitan. Samuil of Kyiv, determined: “to promote Abbot Jacob to archimandrite of the Kyiv-Greek monastery, and for the time being to fill up the missing number of monks with surplus monks from other Kyiv monasteries, so that if in the future monks from the Sinai monastery come to stay in the Kyiv-Greek monastery, then Russian monks must give way Greek."
Definition of St. synod was fulfilled. On August 6, 1786, Abbot Jacob was promoted to archimandrite, and - (reported to the Holy Synod by Metropolitan Samuel) - “due to the lack of sacristy items in the Greek monastery for the priestly service of the archimandrite, he was supplied with them from the abolished Kyiv-Kirillov monastery, left over from what was there Archimandrite Nicholas." Attached to the metropolitan’s report was also a register of things for the archimandrite’s priestly service, transferred from the Kirillov monastery to the Greek monastery, which were: four miters, the archimandrite’s mantle of red piping, the archimandrite’s staff and four pectoral crosses.
The red robe attracted the attention of St. synod. In the decree from ZOSent. 1786, addressed to Metropolitan Samuil, contained the following: “The Holy Synod decided that Archimandrite Iakov, among other vestments, was given a mantle of the Archimandrite of the red ditch, which archimandrites are forbidden to use; for this purpose, the mantle given to Archimandrite Iakov consists of red color,
F THE Kyiv TH CENTURY.
The archimandrite should take it away from him and use it for other sacristy items at the discretion of the bishop - and he, the archimandrite, should be ordered to wear a black mandia, and not any other color without fail. And besides, find out whether there are similar obscenities in other monasteries there, and if they turn out to be, then the use of them should be immediately stopped and St. report all this to the synod."
Metropolitan Samuel reported on October 28 of the same year that the red mandia was created by a scribe's error; in fact, the mandia is black and is attested to by himself.
IX.
The last fate of the Kyiv-Mezhshory monastery ‘).
The Eievo-Mezhigorsky monastery had the Zaporozhye Sich—so to speak—in its parish. From the monastery the hieromonks went to the slaughter to perform services and worship; From the battle, old wounded Cossacks came to the monastery to live out their lives as caps. The monastery sowed spiritual things and reaped material things in abundance; for the Cossacks, at other times very rich in military booty, were zealous and generous investors. The Cossacks favored not only the Kyiv Mezhpgorsky monastery, but also its colony, the Mykolaiv Samara monastery, which was located closer to the Zaporozhye Sich, in the present Ekaterinoslav province.
With the fall of the Zaporozhye Sich, the constant source of income of the Kyiv-Mezhigorsk folding monastery dried up and its very days were already short and exhausted. The first - so to speak - warning to the Mezhigorsky monastery was given by Evgeniy Bulgaris, Archbishop of Kherson and Slavic. In 1778 he entered St. synod with a report that in his newly founded diocese there are extremely few fashionable
*) The history of the Kyiv-Mezhigorsk monastery until the last quarter of the last century is quite well known. There is information about this in Zakrevsky’s Description of Kyiv and in Kisv. e. Ved. 18 (13 Nos. 23-24 and in the article by St. Grigorovich, Kyiv-Mezhigorsky Monastery and Zaporozhye, read at the 1st Archaeological Congress. But the final fate of the monastery has remained quite dark until now. It is possible to clarify them with the help of archival documents of the Holy Synod.
F. A. TERNOVSKY,