Foundation In 1398, Prince
Yuri of Zvenigorod asked
Savva, or Sabbas, one of the first disciples of
Sergius of Radonezh, to come to his capital city and set up a monastic abode. At first, only one wooden church, dedicated to the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was established on the high Storozhi hill above the
Moskva River. Saint Sabbas sought solitude and prayed in a small cave, dug with his own hands. With time more and more monks settled in the new abode. In 1402 Yury Dmitrievich granted it several villages, vast land and forest tenures. St. Savva of Storozhi was interred in the white stone cathedral of the Virgin's Nativity in 1407. This diminutive, roughly hewn church still stands, although its present-day exquisite look is the result of a 1970s restoration campaign. The
frescoes in the altar date back to the 1420s, but the rest of the interior was painted in 1656. A magnificent
iconostasis in five tiers and the
Stroganov school royal doors were installed in 1652.
Tsar Residence In 15-17th centuries the monastery served as a military
picket, defending the
Grand Duchy of Moscow on the West. In 1650, the pious
Tsar Alexis selected the Zvenigorod monastery as his suburban residence. An
ashlar residence for the tsar and a smaller palace for his wife date from the early 1650s. Alexis had the churches encircled with stone walls and towers, patterned after those of the
Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. Particularly noteworthy is a large belfry, erected in four bays in 1650 and crowned with three tents and a clocktower. A new 'gate church' was built by Ivan Sharutin in 1650 and consecrated to the feast of the
Holy Trinity in 1652. In 1650 the
Church of the Transfiguration was built by
Princess Sophia. She also ordered to establish the refectory and in 1686-1687 rebuilt the Tsar Alexis' palace. Since the times of Tsar Alexis the monastery was one of the most important religious places in Russia. All the following tsars and tsarinas, and later — emperors and empresses, came here to pray and receive a blessing before the ceremony of crowning. The road from the Moscow Kremlin to Zvenigorod and the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery was called the Tsar Road or The Road Of God Blessed Tsars, nowadays it is known as Rublevskoe shosse. During the
Napoleonic Wars, on September 12, 1812, the Italian corps of
viceroy Eugene Bograne defeated
Wintzingerode's squadron of light cavalry under the monastery walls. The skirmish is described in the memoirs of Prince
Sergey Volkonsky and Count
Alexander von Benckendorff. According to the local legend, Eugene Bograne stayed at the Sentry Tabernacle of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery. St. Sabba visited Prince Eugene in a dream, promising him a safe return home if his soldiers would not plunder the monastery. Eugene Bograne spared the monastery and indeed returned home safely. == Tourism ==