The Monastery of Holy Mother of God is a female Orthodox monastery in Turkowice, part of the of the Polish Orthodox Church.
The monastery was established in 1903 as one of the non-contemplative monasteries founded in the western dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. Turkowice was chosen as the site for the monastery due to the local Ukrainian population's veneration of the . The nuns primarily engaged in social work: they ran schools, a hospital, a pharmacy, and an orphanage. The monastery was also intended to strengthen Orthodox and Russian cultural influence in the territories incorporated into the Russian Empire following the partitions of Poland. It was an important pilgrimage destination. The monastery functioned until the nuns left for refuge during World War I, from which most did not return.
In the interwar period, the Polish Orthodox Church unsuccessfully attempted to restore the monastery. A few nuns who returned from Russia first lived in the village and then in nearby Sahryń. Meanwhile, the monastery buildings housed charitable institutions run by the Sisters Servants, and after their dissolution during the Polish People's Republic, a farming school operated there. The monastic cathedral was demolished in the 1920s, and the second monastery church was adapted for secular purposes.
The purchase of the former pilgrim house by the Orthodox Diocese of Lublin and Chełm enabled the monastery's reactivation, which was carried out in 2008 by a decree from Archbishop Abel. Since 2013, the remaining former monastic buildings have been unused. The monastery is a center of worship for the Turkowice Icon of the Mother of God and the Sister , who lived there from 1912 to 1915.
Since 2019, the Turkowice Monastery oversees the skete of St. Nicholas in Holeszów.
History
Origins of monastic life in Turkowice The exact date of the establishment of the first monastic community in what is now the village of Turkowice is unknown. According to legend, when Duke Vladislaus II was transporting the icon of Black Madonna of Częstochowa from Belz to Jasna Góra Monastery, he stopped near Turkowice to rest. When he tried to leave, the horses were unable to pull the wagon carrying the miraculous icon. Only after doubling their efforts was the procession able to leave the resting place. At the spot where the wagon stood, a light appeared, in which the face of Mary was clearly visible. The image miraculously transferred itself onto a canvas, creating the revered .
The local Orthodox population built a church on this site. According to Orthodox authors, a male monastery developed around the building. The date of its establishment is undetermined. According to this version of events, after the Union of Brest was signed in 1596, the monks accepted its terms and joined the Basilian Order. However, this did not happen immediately after the union, but rather in the second half of the 17th century at the earliest. In 1749, the monastery was closed on the orders of the Uniate bishop. Historian , however, argues that there is no evidence of a medieval origin for the veneration of the Turkowice Icon of the Mother of God, nor for the existence of an Orthodox monastic community in the village. In his view, the Basilian monastery, established in the first half of the 18th century and operating for several decades, was the first monastery in Turkowice. During this period, a Uniate parish was also created in the village. According to Father Krzysztof Grzesiak, the legend of the Turkowice Icon of the Mother of God emerged in the early 20th century to justify the establishment of an Orthodox monastery funded by the Russian authorities.
Establishment and activities of the female monastery
In the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Orthodox Church experienced a significant increase in the number of monasteries and the monks and nuns inhabiting them. Additionally, a new type of monastery emerged, previously unknown in the Russian church tradition – non-contemplative monasteries focused on social work. These monasteries were mainly established in the western dioceses of the church, i.e., in territories annexed to Russia during the three partitions of Poland. These types of monasteries received substantial financial support from the imperial family and wealthy private donors. The benefactors wished for monks and nuns to contribute to the expansion of Orthodox influence, language, and Russian culture in these areas. The first non-contemplative monastery in the was the female in Leśna Podlaska, established in 1889 and led by Hegumenia Catherine Yefimovskaya, co-creator of the new concept of a socially engaged monastery. Nuns from this monastery subsequently contributed to the establishment of several other monastic communities in this diocese with similar rules: the Monastery of Christ the Savior in Wirów, the , and the . Urszula Pawluczuk states that the main protector of such monasteries was Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who became a fervent advocate of her new faith after converting to Orthodoxy from Lutheranism.
In 1903, a branch of the Monastery of St. Anthony in Radecznica was founded in Turkowice. Its superior was Sister Magdalena (Gorczakowa), who organized the new community according to the model known to her from Leśna Podlaska. The nuns operated a pharmacy, hospital, beekeeping, farming school and orphanage, and from 1910 also a teacher training seminary. The monastery's leadership positions were held by Russians, but it is not possible to determine the overall number of them in the entire community. The monastery complex was built from scratch. At the time of the nuns' arrival, only a wooden church was operating on the site. For the monastery, a five-domed cathedral and a complex of six residential and utility buildings (five wooden, one brick with the Church of St. Sergius and Herman of Valaam) (according to another source – St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk) were built. The main church in the building complex was wooden. The largest of its onion-shaped domes was situated above the nave of the structure, while the remaining lower and longer ones were located on steep tent roofs above the vestibule, chancel, and side chapels. The construction project was co-financed by the Most Holy Synod. Inside the main church was a three-row gilded iconostasis made in the workshop of the Monastery of St. Anthony in Radecznica. The remaining icons complementing the church's furnishings also came from there. The monastic community had its own cemetery. All buildings were maintained in the Russian Revival style.
The monastery was an important pilgrimage site. Thousands of pilgrims visited the village on the feast days of the Protection of the Mother of God and the Deposition of the Robe of the Mother of God. An anonymous account of the celebrations, written by a person using the pseudonym Czerwonorusin, has survived:We enter the forest and see thousands of carriages, and on the square not thousands but tens of thousands of people. You see the Red Russians. You hear the beautiful Little Russian speech not of one or two encountered people, but tens of thousands of Little Russian people. In this multi-thousand crowd, you see both old and young, youth, townspeople, peasants, and many intellectuals. This shimmering crowd gathered from the Tomaszów, Chełm, Zamość, Krasnystaw, and even Biłgoraj counties, as well as neighboring Volhynia, to bow before the miraculous image.In 1906, Bishop Eulogius led the ceremony of transferring the Turkowice Icon of the Mother of God to the monastery cathedral and adorned it with a riza set with precious stones. Fifteen thousand faithful gathered for this ceremony. The monastery helped to maintain Orthodoxy among the local former Uniates after the issuance of the act of tolerance allowing them to convert to Latin Rite Catholicism.
In 1910, also with the support of Bishop Eulogius, the monastery became independent, and in 1912 it attained the status of a first-class monastery. On the eve of World War I, the community consisted of 80 nuns, and up to 30,000 pilgrims would come to the monastery's feast days. In 1915, the nuns from Turkowice left for Russia along with the miraculous icon housed in the monastery. They temporarily stayed at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow.
One of the novices in the Turkowice monastery before 1915 was , who was canonized in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church as a holy nun confessor.
During World War I, a German infectious disease hospital was established in the monastery. Only four nuns from the original community decided to return to Turkowice after the end of hostilities. They were accompanied by Father Andrzej Bojczuk. However, the abandoned monastery buildings were taken over by the Polish state and handed over to the Catholic congregation of the Servant Sisters, who organized an orphanage, school, and nursing home in them. As a result, the attempt to reactivate the Orthodox monastery undertaken in 1919 by the nuns who returned from exile was unsuccessful. The nuns first lived in a private house in the village, then moved to Sahryń, where a local host, Kowalczuk, invited them to stay in his house. The Polish police accused them of anti-Polish activities, and the local authorities were also concerned that Father Bojczuk was conducting pastoral activities without their permission. Ultimately, this part of the former community was also dispersed – the nuns moved to various monasteries of the Polish Orthodox Church.
Interwar period
Catholic monastery In 1919, by order of the Polish authorities, the buildings of the former Orthodox monastery were occupied by an institution of the Main Committee for Aid to Repatriates. The committee established an orphanage for war orphans managed by the Catholic congregation of the Servant Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. From 1921, the monastery was headed by Sister Stanisława Polechajło. In 1924, Father Marian Dębski became the chaplain of the monastery and simultaneously led the Society for the Development of Eastern Lands, coordinating actions related to the reclamation of Orthodox churches and the planned Polonization of the region. The monastery and its associated school, where Polish and Ukrainian children studied together, was described as an important center of Polish culture. The external appearance of the complex was changed. The former cathedral, neglected after the nuns left for exile, deteriorated and was ultimately completely demolished. The cemetery of the Turkowice nuns was also destroyed.
Attempts to revive the monastery before World War II
According to Grzegorz Pelica, the cult of the Turkowice Icon of the Mother of God began to spontaneously revive after 1927; other sources indicate that the first liturgical celebrations in its honor after World War I were organized as early as three years earlier. The persistence of the cult prompted the Synod of Bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church to support it through the activities of specially delegated non-staff clergy to Turkowice: monks Arsenius (Baziaruk), Athanasius (Bokijewicz), , Joseph (Zabarny), Barlaam (Epifanov), and Seraphim (Samojlik). Archbishop of Lutsk was also involved in the development of the cult. By the late 1930s, Turkowice had again become a pilgrimage destination. The popularity of the cult of the Turkowice Icon of the Mother of God is reflected in folk songs, in which the village was mentioned as a major sacred place in the Chełm region, comparable to the monastery in Jabłeczna and the Pochaiv Lavra (a song about Turkowice was written by Father Dmytro Pawełko). In 1928, 12,000 faithful attended the icon's feast day organized at the Orthodox cemetery in Turkowice. A year later, the former monastery cathedral was demolished, officially due to poor technical condition and lack of utility "for state needs".