Gathering Hay, Pustynski Monastery of the Dormition, Pustynki 2013. Збор сена, манастыр Усьпеньня Прасьвятой Багародзіцы, Пустынкі 2013 год.
The Pustynski monastery was first founded in 1380 on the site of a spring which — then as now — is accepted as having miraculous curative powers. From the beginning of the 17th century until the Russian empire suppressed the Greek-Catholic (“Uniate”) rite and imposed Moscow-centric Orthodoxy in 1839, the Pustinski monastery was one of the most important Greek-Catholic centers. In 2003 the monastery was revived by Orthodox monks after decades of Soviet-imposed disuse and ruin.
As we approached, the bells of the 100-foot tall bell tower, built at the beginning of the 19th century and recently restored, rang out firmly and invitingly across the forest, only a few hundred meters from the Belarusian-Russian border.
