St. Cyril's Monastery

St. Cyril's Monastery (Ukrainian: Кирилівський монастир, translit. Kyrylivs’kyi monastyr) is a medieval monastery in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The monastery contains the famous St. Cyril's Church, an important specimen of Kievan Rus' architecture of the 12th century, and combining elements of the 17th and 19th centuries. However, being largely Ukrainian Baroque on the outside, the church retains its original Kievan Rus' interior.

St. Cyril's Monastery was founded in 1140 by Vsevolod Olgovich, the Kniaz' (prince) of Chernigov, in the Dorohozhychi neighbourhood of Kiev and named after his heavenly protector, Cyril of Alexandria. In the second half of the 12th century, Princess Maria, Vsevolod's widow, built the stone church of St. Cyril, which served as an ancestral burial place of the Olgovichi family.

The monastery suffered a harsh fire in 1734, which was later reconstructed by the Ukrainian architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi during 1750–1760. His reconstruction works also included the addition of masonry walls enclosing the monastery's courtyard, a picturesque corner tower and gate, and other monastic buildings.

In 1787, St. Cyril's Monastery was closed by the Tsarist Government and its living quarters were converted into a hospital (St. Cyril's Hospital) and was later transformed into an insane asylum, which lasted until the mid-late 20th century in Soviet Ukraine.

On May 8, 1929, the Council of Commisars of the Ukrainian SSR proclaimed St. Cyril's Monastery as a monument of historic significance and ordered that a "preservation district" be established. However, at the same time, the monastery's church was closed to worship and it was prepared for transformation into a museum. The monastery's belfry was to hold a museum dedicated to Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi. Like the many other numerous state protection districts throughout the Ukrainian SSR, the St. Cyril's complex was owned by the People's Commisariat of Education.

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