Lake Kozhozero

Lake Kozhozero lies in the forests west of the Onega, its waters flowing toward the White Sea through the Kozha River. On an island in the lake, Nifont and Serapion established a remote hermitage in the sixteenth century. Tsar Fyodor granted it land around the lake in 1585, and a wooden Epiphany church was built by 1590. Nikon, later patriarch of Moscow, became its abbot in the 1640s. The monastery was abolished in 1764, leaving its lakeside churches to serve a parish.