{UAH} Inkerman Monastery of St. Clement, Ukraine

Inkerman Monastery of St. Clement, Ukraine

The Inkerman Monastery of St. Clement is a cave monastery in a cliff rising near the mouth of the Black River, in the city of Inkerman, administered as part of the sea port of Sevastopol. It was founded in 1850 on the site of a medieval Byzantine monastery where the relics of St. Clement were supposedly kept before their removal to San Clemente by Saints Cyril and Methodius. The early Christians are supposed to have kept the relics in a grotto which could be visited only on the anniversary of his death. William Rubruck described it as a church "built by the hands of angels".

The Byzantine monastery, probably founded in the 8th century by icon-worshippers fleeing persecution in their homeland, had eight chapels of several storeys and an inn accessed by a stairway. The caves of Inkerman were surveyed by Peter Simon Pallas in 1793 and looted by the British in the 1850s. The Russians added two churches, commemorating the Borki Incident (1895) and the Crimean War (1905). The monastery was damaged by the Crimean Earthquake of 1927 and was closed between 1931 and 1991. During World War II officers of the Soviet army commissioned with defending Sevastopol were housed in the caves which, under Soviet rule, ceased functioning as a monastery. Additions over the years include a church built by the Russians to commemorate the 1888 train disaster near Borki, from which the Romanov family escaped unharmed, which was considered to be a miracle. A second church was built in 1905 to commemorate the Crimean War. The Inkerman Cave Monastery stands as a testament to man's ingenuity and to the craftsmanship of those who built it. [First Image credit Victor Dashkiyeff]

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Image credit Victor Dashkiyeff

Image credit Victor Dashkiyeff

Image credit Victor Dashkiyeff

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Image credit Victor Dashkiyeff

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