Of the twenty monasteries that existed in pre-revolutionary Moscow, the information in all the reference books about the Ivanovsky maiden was almost the shortest. The abbess is Abbess Epiphania, the treasurer is nun Artemia, Archpriest Father Vasily Dmitrievich Lebedev, one priest, two deacons, one psalm reader. And no historical information. However, there really was nothing to write about the age of the monastery.
"And when this monastery was built, under which the sovereign, and according to what state charter, and in which year, there is no exact information about that in the aforementioned monastery," the monastery inventory of 1763 reported. Today's architects tend to consider the 15th century to be the time when the monastery was founded.
This place once withered to itself the glory of one of the darkest in the history of Moscow. The Ivanovsky monastery was founded by Elena Glinskaya, the mother of Ivan the Terrible.
Elena became the new wife of Vasily III. The previous tsar's wife, Solomonia Saburova, was childless, which is why the tsar decided to divorce her. Solomonia cursed the young rival. Perhaps, it was so, for “in atonement for her sins” Helen ordered to establish a women's monastery in honor of the Beheading of John the Baptist, “that is on Kulishki near Bor”.
In 1530, on the day of the consecration of the first monastery church, the firstborn of Helena and Basil was born, who was named John. Yes, only the storm that raged that day knocked down the holy cross from the church dome.
And terrible prophecies crawled across Moscow: this is not good, Ivan will become a formidable tsar, and the heads of innocent people will fly. And so it happened. And after the death of Ivan the Terrible, things began to be completely mystical. A lanky ghost with a characteristic royal profile began to appear near the monastery fence. It moaned, wanted to enter the monastery - to repent, but could not - the king was too sinful during his lifetime.
“Gloomy walls - gloomy deeds … Many times the crosses will fall, Russia will bring misfortune,” Muscovites whispered about the monastery.
Then came other times: King Dmitry I began to rule, whom everyone secretly calls False Dmitry. He married a Polish woman, Marina Mnishek, and now Moscow is whispering that it will become very bad - Polish rule in Russia is coming.
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The rebellious rabble, having killed False Dmitry, shouted out the boyar Shuisky as the king. And the very next day, the matchmakers of the newly-minted tsar solemnly visited the Buinosovs' house, marrying their daughter Maria, who had recently visited the abbess of the Ivanovo monastery and heard from her the prophecy: "As long as Shuisky sits on the throne, you will be there!"
On June 1, 1606, Shuisky was married to the throne in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Soon, his wedding with his beloved Maria took place. His personal life pleased him, but the reign did not work out from the first day: the old boyar families did not believe the "upstart", putting a spoke in the wheels. The matter was complicated by the fact that the ruler Shuisky was not too skillful.
In a word, everyone was unhappy - both the boyars, and the patriarch Hermogenes, and the people who immediately succumbed to the uprising of Ivan Bolotnikov. In addition, a new impostor appeared - False Dmitry II, he is also a Tushinsky thief. In a word, new troubled times have come, and those who dreamed of displacing Shuisky became over the roof.
But the beautiful Mary was faithful to her husband and the throne. Together with him, she survived two assassination attempts on the "royal persons". She gave all her jewelry to support the Russian army. But she helped not only in godly matters, but in everything she could. It was whispered in Moscow that after another brilliant victory of the young commander Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, it was she who, with a smile, brought him a bowl of poison to the feast. After all, Mikhail was the nephew of the tsar, but by his victories he could easily claim the throne instead of his uncle. And Maria did not want to allow this.
The tsarina sent gifts to the Ivanovo monastery with a generous hand. Yes, only in 1610 Shuisky was overthrown and forcibly tonsured into a monk, and then completely given to the Poles as a compensation. And the abbess's prophecy was fulfilled: having lost the throne, the queen also lost her husband. Maria, too, was forcibly tonsured into a nun, and not just anywhere, but in the gloomy walls of the Ivanovo monastery. Her luxurious hair fell to the floor, and, waking up in a black cassock, Maria realized what gift the abbess had once prophesied about: about herself, Mary, who was presented to the monastery under the name of nun Helen.
The monastery began to fulfill its main role - places of imprisonment of disgraced women of high origin - since the time of Ivan the Terrible. They brought here from Vladimir the second wife of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich Praskovya Mikhailovna Solovy, who was forcibly tonsured at Beloozero. Here the other daughter-in-law of Grozny ended her days - the first wife of the tsarevich, Evdokia Bogdanovna Saburova, in monasticism Alexander. And in 1610 the turn of Maria Shuiskaya came.
In the 17th century, near the Ivanovo Monastery, the Salt Yard was built, in the granaries of which salt, which constituted the state monopoly, was kept. All salt miners were obliged to hand it over to the treasury, and small sellers were required to purchase from the state from the barns of the Salt Yard and sell at a fixed price. Hence, the street on which the monastery stood (now - Bolshoi Ivanovsky Lane) began to be called Solyanka, while the current Solyanka was Yauzskaya street in the 18th century. The state monopoly was canceled only in 1733, which deprived the Salt Yard of its former significance.
The terrible Moscow fires of 1737 and 1748, devastating the monastery, seemed to interrupt its history forever. But Empress Elizaveta Petrovna renews it just before her death in 1761. A shelter for widows and orphans of "honored people" is being established here, which anticipated the institution of the future Widow's House. The abbess reappears with a penny salary of three rubles forty-five kopecks per annum and forty-three nuns with half the pay - one ruble seventy-two kopecks per year.
But just as quickly, the former role of the monastery as a terrible "secret" prison is being restored. As before, prisoners from the Secret Chancellery and the Investigative Order, the Schismatic Office, persons involved in political and especially important criminal cases, who were “cleansed” by “blood” during the investigation, were sent here, otherwise they went through all the most sophisticated tortures. The nuns were left to be jailers. Only sedition made nests among them.
Even in the first quarter of the 18th century, the executed "false teachers" of the so-called people of God - false Christs Ivan Timofeevich Suslov and Prokopy Lupkin - were buried within the monastery walls. Suslov was one of the most active assistants of Danila Filippov in spreading the Khlyst sect. A native of the Murom district, at the age of thirty-three, "with the blessing" of Filippov, he went to preach on the Oka and Volga, acquiring fanatical followers everywhere. Since 1672, Suslov lived in Moscow under the name of the "dark rich", had his own house, called the "house of God", "Zion's" and "new Jerusalem", where Khlyst's prayers took place.
In 1716 Suslov died. He was buried in the Ivanovsky monastery, where a monument was erected over the grave with the inscription: "Buried holy saint of God." The grave and the monument were openly honored with whips until 1739, when, at the behest of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the corpse of Suslov, like Prokopy Luponin, was dug out of the ground by the executioners, taken out into the field, burned, and the ashes scattered to the wind. A secret order revealed that Suslov's followers continued to gather in the cell of one of the old women on holidays for prayers. The old woman, along with four other nuns, was executed, all the rest, after being punished with a whip, were exiled forever to Siberia.