Kyiv Pechersk Lavra

The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves, overlooks the Dnipro in Kyiv. In 1051 the monk Anthony settled in a cave and gathered disciples; Prince Iziaslav I gave the hill to the monks, who built their monastery with architects from Constantinople.

It became a religious and cultural centre of Kyivan Rus, where monks wrote the Primary Chronicle and the Kyiv Caves Patericon. Its wealth drew repeated attacks: the Cumans plundered it in 1096, Batu Khan's Mongols stormed it in 1240, and Tatar raids of 1416 and 1482 burned it.

Rebuilt each time, it won stauropegion rights directly under the Patriarch of Constantinople in the later sixteenth century and took the title of lavra. After the Union of Brest, the Ostrogski family secured it for Orthodoxy in 1613; its printing house, opened in the 1620s, and its school made Kyiv a centre of Orthodox learning.