How a brave warrior became a monk and what feats did Archimandrite Alipy Voronov accomplish
How a brave warrior became a monk and what feats did Archimandrite Alipy Voronov accomplish

Video: How a brave warrior became a monk and what feats did Archimandrite Alipy Voronov accomplish

Video: How a brave warrior became a monk and what feats did Archimandrite Alipy Voronov accomplish
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Having reached Berlin and having received the highest military awards, this man became a monk and abbot of one of the largest Russian monasteries, but he did not cease to be a warrior. All his life he fought with stupidity and ignorance, and always won. And even to the end of his days he remained an artist, custodian and collector of cultural values, for which he was even called “the Pskov Tretyakov”.

The life of Ivan Mikhailovich Voronov unfolded like an amazing motley ribbon, bending in completely opposite directions. Born in 1914 in a remote village, he nevertheless managed to get an art education in Moscow. He worked, however, then in the metro building and at the factory. From 1942 to 1945, he passed the battle path from Moscow to Berlin as part of the Fourth Tank Army, earning the Order of the Red Star. Surprisingly, it was the war that made him a real artist - all his combat years he never parted with a sketchbook and constantly painted. His front-line works were exhibited even during the war, and in 1946 a personal exhibition was organized in Moscow in the Column Hall of the House of Unions.

However, not only art supported the young artist. As he later admitted,. 5 years after the end of the war, the successful painter fulfilled his promise and became a novice of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Zagorsk. From that moment on, a new round of this amazing fate began.

Father Alipy in his study
Father Alipy in his study

When he was tonsured, Ivan Mikhailovich received the name Alipy, which means “carefree”. This name became his talisman for the rest of his life. Unexpectedly for himself, having taken the priesthood, the former war hero again found himself on the battlefield, and very cruel. In 1959, Father Alipy was appointed governor of the Pskov-Caves Monastery and took upon himself all the blows that fell in those years on the Russian Orthodox Church, or rather on what was left of it by that time. Khrushchev just started a new round of anti-religious struggle and promised to show the last priest on TV. The information wave hit the few surviving temples. Newspaper headlines of those years were full of catchy headlines:. From the height of the next round of religiosity that has overshadowed our country in recent decades, I would like to note that the clergy of those years deserved such epithets to a lesser extent than their Russian colleagues from any other period of history.

Archimandrite Alipy and local youth
Archimandrite Alipy and local youth

Archimandrite Alipy for many years repulsed the attacks of the authorities on his monastery. Popular rumor has preserved many semi-legendary stories about this unequal battle with the system itself, from which the "warrior in a black cassock", oddly enough, always emerged victorious. His weapon now was a sharp word and absolute courage. One of the most famous stories tells how, at the behest of the abbot, before the arrival of the next commission for the closure, a plague was discovered in the monastery. It was this notice that Alipy posted on the gate and refused to let anyone into the territory:

Then he flew to Moscow once again - to persuade, coax, persuade and, as usual, win. As a result, he managed to defend the Pskov-Pechersky monastery. This monastery, by the way, remained one of the few in Russia that has never stopped its work - since its very foundation, since 1473.

Holy Dormition Pskovo-Pechersky Monastery - one of the oldest and largest male monasteries in Russia
Holy Dormition Pskovo-Pechersky Monastery - one of the oldest and largest male monasteries in Russia
The unique system of cave complexes of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery is more than 200 meters long
The unique system of cave complexes of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery is more than 200 meters long

Having saved the monastery from closure, Archimandrite Alipy was also able to return the treasures taken out by the Nazis from the monastery sacristy in 1944. According to the surviving documents, these were several hundred items packed in 4 boxes. Years of searching for the abbot did not give any results, until in 1968 Alipy turned to the public. The newspaper "Sovetskaya Rossiya" published an article "Where are the treasures of the Pechora Monastery?", After which many people started searching. As a result, they discovered the Pechora treasures in the FRG. Helped in this by a local farmer, and part-time amateur detective Georg Stein. It turned out that the values had been kept all these years in the storerooms of the museum of icons in the city of Recklinghausen. In May 1973, the monastic values were returned. After their inventory, it turned out that a collection of enormous value returned to our country - a total of 620 works of art made of gold and silver, dating back to the middle of the 16th - beginning of the 20th century.

Father Alipy himself was engaged in icon painting and restoration
Father Alipy himself was engaged in icon painting and restoration

Archimandrite Alipy remained a passionate collector and collector of works of art throughout his life. His collection included paintings by Shishkin, Kramskoy, Vasnetsov, Nesterov, Klodt, Aivazovsky, Polenov, Kustodiev, Bakst, Makovsky, as well as Western European masters. All canvases after his death (and partially, in the last years of his life) were transferred to art museums. Father Alipy died in 1975, only a few months before the opening of the exhibition "Russian painting and graphics of the 18th-20th centuries from the collection of IM Voronov" in the Russian Museum.

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