Formerly a Cossack church, St. Sophia Cathedral (consecrated in honor of the holy martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov, and their mother Sophia) is the oldest church in the city of Verny (Alma-Ata). It was built according to the design of the architect Brusentsov in 1895 on the site of an earlier cathedral erected in 1871 and destroyed by the earthquake of 1887. This destroyed parish, in turn, arose on the site of a prayer house built in 1855. This date borders on the year of the foundation of the city of Verny, which allows us to speak of St. Sophia Cathedral as the first church in the capital of Semirechye.
On July 12, 1907, sisters Maria and Khristina Nikolenkova, townswomen of Verny, addressed the local mayor with a petition of the following content: “Having a sincere desire to dedicate ourselves to the service of the Lord God, we would like to establish a women’s monastic community in proud Verny, the equipment of which we undertake; therefore, addressing Your Excellency with this statement, we have the honor to humbly ask you to allocate a small plot of city land, no matter where, on which we could establish a women’s community.” The sister’s petition was supported by the deputy of the city council from the spiritual department, Archpriest Mikhail Kolobov, deputy and member of the city council Petr Breusov, member of the Turkestan Spiritual Consistory Archpriest Sergiy Appolov, and the new secretary of the Turkestan Spiritual Consistory Ivan Rakitin. Around the same time, a nun Paisia, a native of Verny, arrived in the city from the Tashkent Nikolaevsky Monastery to collect taxes for the monastery, together with sisters Daria Orlova and Agrippina Kopytova, who actively joined in the efforts to establish a monastic community in the city of Verny.
Having asked Bishop Dimitry for the right to live in Verny for a year, nun Paisia settled with her sisters in a small cell donated to the Tashkent monastery for a farmstead. In this cell, the sisters read akathists, lives of saints, and gathered sympathetic wives and girls to them for pious conversations.
These meetings increased over time, and reached such a number that the small cell could not always accommodate everyone who was doing it.
The solitary life of the inhabitants of the cell, their pious life, devoid of worldly vanity and abuse, reminiscent of quiet monasteries, involuntarily awakened in the minds of numerous visitors, who were inflamed with the desire to live a chaste life, the idea of expanding this cell so that it could accommodate within its walls all those seeking monastic life.
When the number of girls wishing to devote themselves to monastic life increased to such a number that a separate monastic community could easily exist, nun Paisia, having consulted with the sisters, went to Bishop Dimitry with a request to open a women's monastery.
On October 12 of the same year, a meeting of the Spiritual Consistory was held, at which, after hearing the reports of Archpriests Mikhail Kolobov, Sergiy Appolov, Dimitry Polivkin, the proposal of His Grace Dimitry (Abashidze) was accepted and it was written down: “Having heard the stated proposal of His Grace on the establishment of a women’s monastery in the city of Verny with the name of Iveron-Seraphim and on the authorization of the teacher of the law of the Verny boys’ gymnasium, member of the consistory, Archpriest Mikhail Kolobov, to petition the local authorities regarding the allocation of land and property for the above-mentioned monastery.” The monastery was established by the decree of the Holy Governing Synod on December 20, 1908. The foundation of the monastery was the women’s community at the All Saints Church near the Verny Cemetery on Tashkent Alley. The abbess of the monastery was the experienced nun Nektaria, who came from the Stavropol John-Mariinsky Monastery. Nun Magdalena Khalina recalled: “I was a cell-attendant to Abbess Nektaria. She was a wonderful servant of God. Having lived many years in the Stavropol Monastery, she acquired deep humility, a clear mind, a living faith, and, having become the abbess of the Vernoye Monastery, she saw everything, every little thing, delved into all matters, and treated the sisters as daughters, knowing the needs and discretion of each one.”
On December 31, 1908, after the liturgy, Bishop Dimitry solemnly announced the decree on the opening of the Iveron-Seraphim women's monastery community.
The first tonsures were performed by Bishop Dimitry on May 24, 1909. Then he tonsured the novices Daria, Agrippina and Christina into the mantle.
Soon a copy of the miraculous Iveron Icon of the Mother of God was delivered from Moscow to Verny. The relic was given to the community by the Moscow Donskoy Monastery.
By the beginning of the summer of 1909, the number of nuns in the monastery reached 80 people. In 1910, at the request of Bishop Dimitry (Abashidze), the community was transformed into a monastery. More than 100 nuns carried out their feat here under the leadership of nun Nektaria.
The sisters were cared for by the holy martyrs Hieromonks Seraphim and Anatoly, as well as Hieromonks Job, Vitaly, Nikolay and Khariton.
In 1911, a parish school was opened in a special building of the monastery. It was attended by 25 boys and 22 girls.
In December 1910, when Verny was destroyed by an earthquake, the St. Sophia Cathedral was also damaged, but social upheavals were more terrible than the natural disasters.
Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky), who was appointed to the cathedra, appointed 25-year-old novice Taisiya Bakrevich to the position of abbess, contrary to the decision of the Holy Synod (which appointed Agnia as treasurer of the monastery after Bishop Innocent removed Abbess Nektaria from her position). Great confusion began in the monastery. On July 1, 1913, Mother Nektaria was forced to leave Verny and went to European Russia, to the Seraphim-Ponetaevsky Monastery. The sisters grabbed the hem of her cassock, ran after her, and cried.
From 1912 until the closure of the monastery, grand religious processions began from its gates, in which two to three thousand people participated. The religious procession went to the village of Sofiyskaya (now the city of Talgar), to the Church of the Great Martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa for a solemn service and prayer service at the miraculous icon of the same name.
After the revolution of 1917, the history of St. Sophia Cathedral, as well as many other churches, was cut short.
From September 1918, the monastery existed as a commune, experiencing various kinds of deprivation and outrages from the godless authorities. Thus, the monastery existed until the spring of 1921. And in the mid-1920s it was captured by the Renovationists. In 1929, the sisters' building was dismantled and moved to a new location (the corner of Gogol and 8 March streets), where it remains to this day.
On March 15, 1921, the Vernoye City Council decided to give the cemetery, taking it away from the monastery, to occupy the premises of 10 rooms, where the abbess was located, for a public people's cause, and to remove Abbess Euphrosyne and bring her to trial in accordance with the entry in the journal of the congress of the clergy" from July 7, 1917.
One of the first victims of the Bolsheviks in the monastery was nun Evdokia - she was shot on September 28, 1918. The other nuns went their separate ways, and those who did not have time were also shot. The last of the inhabitants to survive to this day was nun Magdalena (Feoktista Savelyevna Khalina). Having lived an ascetic life, she peacefully reposed in the Lord on January 24, 1993, at the age of 106.
Some of the nuns scattered to villages and stanitsas, while others settled in a small community with the remaining male monks in Verny in the Garden plots. The community was headed by an elderly archimandrite, presumably Peter, the treasurer and steward of the Turkestan Bishop's House, and from 1908 to 1914, the abbot of the Holy Trinity Issyk-Kul Monastery. After his death in 1922, hegumen (since 1924, archimandrite) Vadim became his successor.
After the monastery was closed, some of the sisters began to go to the Nikolskaya Church. Then they moved there, sang in the choir, baked prosphora, sold candles. And again they began to live almost according to the monastery charter.
In February 1936, the Nikolskaya Church was closed, and the nuns were evicted.
The question of the fate of the once existing women's monastery has been raised many times among the parishioners and clergy of local churches in Alma-Ata. One of the devotees of this noble cause was priest Valery Chernenko. In the late 90s of the 20th century, together with several parishioners, he took on the task of clearing the remains of the foundation of the St. Sophia Church and coped with this work.
In November 2003, Metropolitan Methodius (Nemtsov) of Astana and Alma-Ata (now Metropolitan of Perm and Kungur) sent a report to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' asking him to bless the revival of the monastic monastery and monastic life. The blessing of the Patriarch and the Holy Synod was soon received.
By decision of the Synod, the Iveron-Seraphim Monastery was supposed to be organized on the territory of the St. Sophia Cathedral.
On March 21, 2004, Metropolitan Methodius announced the decree of the Synod during the service, and on May 19 of the same year, the foundation was consecrated and the first stone of the restored St. Sophia Cathedral was laid.
Since March 30, 2005, the abbess of the monastery has been Abbess Lyubov (Yakushkina).
On November 21, 2005, on the day of the celebration of the Council of Archangel Michael, Metropolitan Methodius performed the rite of consecration of the tomb cross over the graves of the first saints of Turkestan: Archbishop Sophronia and Bishop Nikon.
On April 25, 2006, the bells cast for the monastery were consecrated. Their total weight is more than three tons. The largest weighs 1,600 kg.
On September 30, 2007, Metropolitan Methodius performed the rite of consecration of the restored cathedral.
The iconostasis and decoration of the cathedral were made and installed in December 2010. By the end of 2010, construction was completed not only on the cathedral, but also on the entire monastery complex, which included: the Church of Blessed Matrona of Moscow (2005), the chapel for the blessing of water (2008), a communal cell building for 70 people (2009), the abbot's building (2010), the chapel of St. Seraphim of Sarov (2011), and a garage block with workshops on the second floor (2012).
On September 30, 2011, on the day of the heavenly patronesses of Alma-Ata, a reliquary with a great relic was delivered to St. Sophia Cathedral – the healing relics of the holy glorious, all-praiseworthy and victorious martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sophia. The holy relics, at the request of Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, were donated to the Orthodox residents of Almaty from the Konstantino-Eleninsky Convent near St. Petersburg, by the abbess of the convent, Abbess Ilariona (Feoktistova), and the founder of the convent, Konstantin Veniaminovich Goloshchapov. The reliquary for storing the relic was made with the blessing of Metropolitan Alexander in the Alexander Nevsky Art Workshop in Moscow by the famous jeweler A.I. Aniskina.
On September 29, 2015, the Head of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District, Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, performed the rite of consecration of the newly created frescoes of the St. Sophia Cathedral of the Iversky-Seraphim Convent.
The frescoes were painted especially for the patronal feast of the church – the day of remembrance of the martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sophia – the heavenly patronesses of Semirechye.
The St. Sophia Cathedral was painted by a team of icon painters from the city of Palekh (Russia, Ivanovo Region) under the leadership of a member of the Union of Artists of Russia V.K. Kurilov.
The work on the painting of the St. Sophia Cathedral lasted for five months. The area of the painted walls and vaults of the cathedral was more than 2,000 square meters.
The frescoes, made according to sketches by V.K. Kurilov, cover the walls with a continuous picturesque carpet and harmonize with the iconostasis of the cathedral. The figures of Christ, the Mother of God, the apostles and saints are painted in the best traditions of Palekh masters. The pictorial decoration is abundant in red shades - a symbol of martyrdom, since the temple is dedicated to the holy sufferers for Christ, and gold - a symbol of the radiance of Heavenly glory and eternity. Among the faces of God's saints are new martyrs and confessors who shone in Kazakhstan.
The monastery has a Sunday school for children, covering two age groups with about 50 people. Theological talks are held weekly, gathering the same number of listeners.
Address: 050002, Almaty city, st. Latifa Hamidi, 30
Phone: +7 (727) 397-41-05
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