White Mountain Monastery

Perched atop a hill in the Ural mountains sits the stoic Belogrosky Monastery.  With its gold dome toppers glistening in the sun (which can be seen from miles away) this monastery is considered the largest cathedral in the Urals.  

The building of this monastery began in 1902 with completion in 1917.  Not long after its completion the Revolution broke out and what was once a safe haven for monks turned into an execution site.  As you walk the perimeter of the monastery you will find a couple of places where the bullet holes still remain in the wall.  During the Revolution, the priests and monks that were part of the monastery where killed when they refused to denounce their faith.  

The persecution, killing, and imprisonment of believers would extend throughout Russia and would continue until the 1990's.  The majority of the icons in the church were torn down and destroyed, but some icons were taken by villagers who then buried them in the ground in order to try and save them from being destroyed by the Red Army.

After the Revolution White Mountain Monastery was turned into a psychiatric hospital and then used for shell shocked patients during the Great Patriotic War (WWII).  In the late 1970's a patient residing in the monastery set fire to the roof, resulting in the monastery being abandoned.  A group of monks banned together and started to work on restoring the monastery back to its full splendor in 1993.  Today the scaffolding remains as renovation is still being completed, but the church is a full fledged working Orthodox church.

View from the Monastery. On a clear day it is said you can see for miles.

To enter the Orthodox church you have to wear a head covering, but what we didn't know was that even though we were wearing long pants we still had to wear a skirt.  The church provides wrap skirts for women to wear.