March 30, 2025. Kostanay Region, village of Oktyabrskoye. On the 4th Sunday of Great Lent, with the blessing of Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, in the Church of the Holy Preeminent Apostles Peter and Paul of the Iveron-Petropavlovsk Convent, the Secretary of the Kostanay Diocese, Hieromonk Gennady (Burdyuzha), performed the first monastic tonsure of the nun Glykeria (Lantukh).
Present in prayer during the tonsure were: Hegumeness Nika (Otroshchenko), Hieromonk Methodius (Chulkov), parishioners of the convent, and pilgrims from the city of Kostanay.
The newly tonsured nun received the name Anna – in honor of the Righteous Princess Anna of Kashin.
At the end of the rite, Hieromonk Gennady addressed the newly tonsured nun with words of edification. Notably, the name she received was the same as that given during tonsure to the first Hegumeness of the Iveron convent – Anna (Borodina).
According to materials from the website of the Kostanay Diocese
On May 25, 1894, by decree No. 2281 of the Holy Synod, the Kostanay Iveron Women’s Community was officially established, initially including 25 novices from the peasant class. By the spring of 1895, the community already numbered 80 sisters, and they also provided shelter to the blind, the infirm, and the sick. Due to this expansion, on May 24, 1895, the Diocesan Consistory granted permission to begin construction of a refectory church, according to the approved plan, as well as to build more suitable residential cells.
On August 8, 1895, by the casting of lots, Nun Anna (in the world Elena Stepanovna Borodina) was confirmed as superior of the Kostanay Iveron Women’s Community. She had contributed more than anyone else to the foundation of the community. Kseniya Sadchikova was appointed treasurer.
On September 30, 1895, a significant event took place – the refectory church of the Kostanay Iveron Women’s Community was consecrated by Dean Priest Nikolai Malyshev in honor of the Holy Trinity. From October of the same year, services began to be regularly held on Sundays, feast days, and three times a week.
On October 7, 1897, report No. 9986 was submitted to Bishop Vladimir of Orenburg and Uralsk from Hegumeness Anna of the Iveron Women’s Community, requesting permission to build a wooden church on the convent grounds. In 1899, changes were made to the original project. The estimated cost of construction was 7,181 rubles. On September 29, 1901, the church was consecrated by Dean Protopriest Pavel Podbelsky in honor of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. Eight other clergy participated in the consecration. On October 3 and 4, 1901, monastic tonsures were performed in the newly built church.
The monastery had two metochia: one official (near the village of Zhdanovka) and one unofficial (present-day address – village of Oktyabrsky in the Kostanay district). The land for the latter had been rented from the local population. At the official metochion near Zhdanovka, a prayer house was built and consecrated on May 29, 1909, in honor of the Great Martyr Paraskeva.
From 1903 onward, Hegumeness Anna regularly petitioned the authorities to grant the monastery permanent ownership of the land of the unofficial metochion, as the plot near Zhdanovka proved unsuitable for agricultural use. Hegumeness Anna personally traveled to Saint Petersburg to resolve the matter, where she met with Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. In 1913, the state transferred the land in the area of the present-day village of Oktyabrsky in the Kostanay district to the monastery’s permanent possession. As a result, the plot near Zhdanovka was relinquished, and all buildings were relocated to the new site.
In 1917, a church was built on the metochion territory (in present-day Oktyabrsky) in honor of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker.
Significant changes occurred after the October Revolution. In 1920, a commission composed of representatives from the Land Department, Communal Economy, and the Administration Department was formed to begin inventorying monastic property. On November 30, 1925, the monastery building was nationalized and handed over to the Department of Public Education.
On January 15, 1930, under protocol No. 57, the monastery was closed, its bell removed and sent for scrap. As of January 24, 1930 (per protocol No. 59), the monastery premises were allocated “for the Agricultural and Technical School under lease, to implement the liquidation of monastery property.” Monastic residential buildings were then used as warehouses, a pigsty, and a rabbit farm.
Before the revolution, the Iveron Monastery had housed several dozen nuns and about 140 novices. After the closure, many remained in the city, living in lay cells in private homes and apartments.
In 1929, the monastery’s spiritual father, Protopriest Peter Kasenkov, was sentenced to three years in a concentration camp “for opposing the closure of the convent.” Nun Anna Danilova was convicted with him.
In 1937, mass repressions began and affected the nuns as well. Under the case “of the clergy of the Cemetery Church,” between August and November, 39 people from among the clergy, monastics, and parishioners were arrested. Of them, 32 were executed (24 of them nuns) and buried in an unmarked mass grave; 7 were sentenced to 10 years in labor camps. Among those repressed and executed were the convent’s spiritual father, Protopriest Peter Kasenkov, and Hegumeness Paraskeva Vodyasova, who at that time was the superior of the monastery.
By 1961, only 25 of the original 180 nuns remained alive. Many of them continued their spiritual lives in Kostanay, others in the village of Stepanovka (Mendykarinsky district, Kostanay Region), and later some ended their earthly paths in the village of Borovskoye, where they were cared for by Protopriest Nikolai Moiseyev.
In 1932, the monastic church in Kostanay was destroyed, but some of the monastery buildings survived. Along Krasnoselskaya Street near the television tower, monastic buildings can still be seen. One houses a School of Technical Creativity, another a children’s neuropsychiatric boarding school; others are in private ownership.
By 1990, in the village of Oktyabrsky (Kazakhstanyets), a building previously belonging to the women’s monastery was still standing. Today it houses the Church of the Holy Preeminent Apostles Peter and Paul.
In 1992, this building was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 1996–1997, the rector of the parish in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Oktyabrsky, Priest Gennady Subbotin, left the Moscow Patriarchate and joined the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. After the reunification of the Moscow Patriarchate with ROCOR in 2007, the suspended Priest Subbotin withdrew from ROCOR and entered into schism under Agathangel (Pashkovsky).
In the 1990s and 2000s, G. Subbotin failed to complete the legal documentation for ownership of the church building and land plot. As a result, a court case was held in 2020. The Kostanay and Rudny Diocese acted as plaintiff.
By court decision, on June 2, 2023, the church building and land plot were officially transferred to the Kostanay and Rudny Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan.
On July 12, 2023, the minor consecration of the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul took place.
Today, the monastery is experiencing a revival: pilgrims are visiting the village of Oktyabrsky and assisting in the restoration of the monastic community. Cells are now available where novices and sisters of mercy reside. The community is headed by Hegumeness Nika (Otroshchenko).
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