Pühtitsa Convent

Pühtitsa Convent (Estonian: Kuremäe Jumalaema Uinumise nunnaklooster, Russian: Пюхтицкий Успенский женский монастырь) is a convent located in Eastern Estonia (Ida-Viru County) between Lake Peipus and the Gulf of Finland. A small Orthodox Christian church was built in Pühtitsa in the 16th century. The convent was founded in 1891.

The convent is located on a site known as Pühitsetud ("blessed" in Estonian) since ancient times. According to a 16th-century legend, near the local village, Kuremäe, a shepherd witnessed a divine revelation near a spring of water to this day venerated as holy. Later, locals found an ancient icon of Dormition of the Mother of God under a huge oak tree. The icon still belongs to the convent.

In 1888, the Russian Orthodox Church sent a nun from Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery to establish a convent in Pühtitsa. The main Cathedral of the convent was built to a design by Mikhail Preobrazhensky in a Russian Revival style and was fully completed in 1910.

There are six churches in the convent dedicated to a number of Orthodox Christian Saints such as St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. Simeon the Receiver of God, St. Nicholas, St. Anna the Prophetess and others. Prince Sergei Shakhovskoy governor-general of Estonia was convent's patron and protected it from local nobles, mostly German Lutherans, who tried to resist its construction. The convent was first Orthodox monastery built in Estonia to the delight of mostly Orthodox local Estonian and Russian peasants of Jõhvi county.

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