Holy Mountains Lavra

Holy Mountains Lavra (Свято-Успенська Святогірська лавра)
Sviatohirsk Lavra
Lavra
The Sviatohirsk Lavra from the left bank of the Seversky Donets River
Country	Ukraine
Region	Donetsk Oblast
Municipality	Sviatohirsk
Founded	1526
Owner	Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)

The Holy Mountains Lavra (Ukrainian: Свято-Успенська Святогірська Лавра, Sviatohirsk Lavra or the Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery; Russian: Свято-Успенская Святогорская лавра, Sviatogorskaya Lavra or the Sviatogorsky Cave Monastery) is a major Orthodox Christian monastery on the steep right bank of the Seversky Donets River near the city of Sviatohirsk in Donetsk Oblast (province) of eastern Ukraine. The name comes from the surrounding Holy Mountains.

Today, the monastery forms the centrepiece of the Sviatohori National Nature Park. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) proclaimed it a lavra in 2004.

The first written mention of the monastery dates from 1627, although Sigismund von Herberstein had alluded to the "Holy Mountains" area as early as 1526. It is likely that the first monks settled the area in the 15th century. At the time it was a minor monastic establishment in the Wild Fields regularly ravaged by the Crimean Tatars.

In 1787, Catherine II had it shut down. The monastery's lands were secularized and donated to Prince Grigory Potemkin, the Viceroy of New Russia. One of his heirs, Aleksander Mikhailovich Potemkin, and his wife Tatiana, née Princess Galitzine, financed the monastery's revival and rebuilding, starting in 1844.