St. Sergius, the founder of the Holy Trinity Lavra, was born of wealthy Rostov boyars on May 3, 1314. On the fortieth day the local priest baptized the child, naming him Bartholomew. From his childhood he grew accustomed to solitude and sought his salvation through prayer, fasting and work. In 1337, at the age of 23, after his parents' death, he decided to leave for the desert together with his elder brother Stephen. The brothers chose to found their hermitage in a clearing surrounded by thick forest on a low hill, later called Makovets. They built for themselves a cell and a small church, which they dedicated to the Lifegiving Trinity. That was the birth of the monastery, which later served as a source of pride and inspiration to the people of Russia.

The life of a hermit was very difficult and required a good deal of perseverance and will. Stephen could not take the rigours of winter and the scarcity of food. He preferred life in an urban monastery and left Bartholomew for Moscow.

For about two years Bartholomew remained alone in the desert, and in silence and prayer he prepared himself for his monastic vows. After taking them with the name of Sergius, he lived even more austere ascetic life in solitude, reading the Bible, working in his garden and unceasingly praying.

Despite the distance of his hermitage, word concerning the exemplary ascetic life of St. Sergius soon spread everywhere and pious monks began coming to him in search of guidance. Later farmers and city dwellers used to come from all over for St. Sergius` blessing and advice and the n settled in the area of the monastery. The Mongol yoke, which weighed heavily on the country, caused its ruin and forced people to leave the most exposed regions and seek refuge in the wilderness.

Having become abbot of the monastery, St. Sergius did not change anything in his life and continued to work for all. He remembered the words of Christ, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve”. He was not only a father but also a servant to all those who came to him, giving an example of humility and work. Saint Sergius officiated every day, and he himself prepared alter bread, grinding wheat and making dough. He also prepared food, made boots and habits for the monks, carried water from the spring and left a bucket at each monk's cell. He himself built 3 or 4 cells for other monks. He spent the night praying, eating only a little bread and water and never spent an hour without working.

Numerous miracles took place and many people were cured by St. Sergius` prayers. Gradually he became famous all over the country. Many pilgrims as well as suffering and poor people came to him for consolation.

In his lifetime already he was revered as a saint.

For a long time the number of the monks was limited to twelve. Then new candidates arrived and the community began to grow. The saint refused no one the right to enter the monastery. Among his disciples and followers there are about 70 canonised saints. In central and north-eastern Russia they founded about 50 monasteries, which became centres of orthodox piety and spiritual enlightenment.

In 1380, Prince Dimitry Donskoy of Moscow came to seek St. Sergius` blessing before leading his army for the Orthodox faith and for the liberation of his native land from the Mongol yoke, which greatly oppressed Russia since 1237.

Having received the saint's blessing to go against the godless enemies, the Grand Prince won a great victory over the army of the Tartar Khan Mamai on the Kulikovo Field on the 8th of September. It was the first major Russian victory against the Tartars. After that, Moscow Princes became the patrons of the Trinity monastery.

St. Sergius entrusted his holy and pure soul to God on September 25, 1392. His successor as abbot of the Trinity monastery was St. Nikon, first among his disciples.

St. Nikon (1355-1426) was from the city of Yuriev-Polsky. He came to the Trinity monastery at a very early age, that's why St. Sergius put him under the guidance of his disciple St. Athanasius, the abbot of the Theotokos on the Mountain monastery in Serpukhov. In 1375 St. Nikon returned to the Trinity monastery and became St. Sergius` closest co-worker. Half a year before his death, St. Sergius entrusted the leadership of the monastery to St. Nikon and vowed himself to silence. He was abbot of the monastery until his death in 1426.

St. Nikon rebuilt the entire monastery that had been destroyed during the invasion by Khan Edigei in 1408. In 1422 the holy relics of St. Sergius were discovered during the construction of the Trinity Cathedral. St. Nikon commissioned the famous iconographers Andrei Rublev and Daniel the Black to paint the cathedral. The work was finished by 1425.

St. Nikon died in 1426 and was buried by the southern wall of the Trinity Cathedral, where a church dedicated to him was constructed in 1548, a year after his canonization. The church was rebuilt in 1623. At the western wall of it there is a chapel called Serapion's Tent, constructed above the tomb of St. Serapion, archbishop of Novgorod.

In the reign of the tsar Ivan IV, who had a particular veneration for St. Sergius, the monastery was surrounded by a stone enclosure topped by 12 towers. After the end of the wars against Tartars and the victory over the kingdoms of Kazan and Astrakhan, the tsar began building a large and beautiful church, dedcated to the Dormition of the Mother of God, a copy of the Kremlin Dormition Cathedral. The walls, the pillars and the vaults are covered with frescoes on the subjects of Church History. Most of the wall frescoes are dedicated to the Dormition of the Holy Virgin.

On the pillars there are images of the most highly venerated saints of the Orthodox Church. The magnificent frescoes of the Cathedral were created in 1684 by 35 painters in a 100 days. The frescoes cover the area of 500 square metres. The 5-tier iconostasis consists of 76 icons dated back to the 16th-17th centuries. The celebrated seventeenth-century painter Simon Ushakov, the royal isographer, took part in the creation of the iconostasis.

In the Dormition Cathedral there are two shrines with the holy relics of St.

Filaret (Drozdov 1867) and St. Innokenty (Veniaminov 1879), Metropolitans of Moscow. By the western wall, to the right of the entrance, you can see the tomb of Makarius (Bulgakov 1882), one of Moscow Metropolitans, who created many outstanding works on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and on dogmatic theology.

In 1476, on the site of the wooden Trinity Church constructed in 1412 by St.

Nikon, master-builders from Pskov, invited for the construction work in the Moscow Kremlin, erected a new single-domed church, dedicated to the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. Under the dome of the church the builders placed an open belfry. In 1608-1610 during the siege of the monastery by Polish troops this church was used as a watch-tower.

The church of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity Cathedral form an ensemble. The frescoes in the Holy Spirit Church were executed in 1655, but in the middle of the 19th century they were replaced by oil paintings. The iconostasis was carved of rosewood by the Lavra woodcarvers in 1866. In the church there are two shrines with the holy relics of St. Maximus the Greek (1556) and St. Anthony of Radonezh (1877). St. Maximus the Greek was one of the most erudite men of his period. In 1518, at the invitation of the Grand Prince of Moscow Basil III (Vasily III), he arrived in Mos-cow from Athos to translate liturgical and patristic books from Greek into Russian. He also wrote many theological and polemic works. He died in the monastery in 1556 and was buried here. In 1988 he was canonised.

St. Anthony was canonised in 1996. From 1770, the Metropolitans of Moscow were abbots of the monastery. St. Anthony was the monastery's vicar in 1831-1877.

By the end of the 17th century the number of the monks considerably grew and the old Refectory couldn't satisfy the needs of the monastery. Instead of it, a new Refectory with the church dedicated to St. Sergius was erected by order of Peter I in 1686-1692. The church was consecrated by Patriarch Adrian, the last prerevolutionary Patriarch of Russia, in memory of the 300th anniversary since St. Sergius' death.

The building of Moscow baroque style is 85 m long. Open galleries run along its perimeter, with long flights of steps leading up to these galleries. The church building catches the eye with the four-colour design of its faзade, creating the illusion of faceted relief-work, as well as with the richness of its elaborate colourful stucco and carvings. The walls of the Refectory were painted and renovated several times.

For the last time the church was painted in 1911.

The veneration of the Mother of God was central in the life of St. Sergius. Every night he sang hymns in honour of the Holy Virgin, and at the end of his life, he and his disciple St. Mica had a privilege of Her visit. She came to his cell with the apostles Peter and John by her side. The Holy Virgin promised to protect the monastery and to watch over it. In memory of this appearance a small church, which looks like a gem, was constructed in 1734. People connect it with the name of St. Mica, as the church stands above his grave. On the commemoration day of St. Mica, May 6/19, a Liturgy is celebrated here.

The Chapel-over-the Well was built at the end of the 17th century over the spring, which shot up during the repair of the porch of the Dormition Cathedral in 1644. Many pilgrims were cured by this water, and people took it to the sick to heal them. The first was a blind monk, whose eyesight returned due to this miracleworking water. Till this day thousands of pilgrims use this water for cure and consolation in their troubles.

The colourful tent-like canopy over the cross-shaped fountain, which receives water from the spring, was built in 1872.

The Assembly Chambers with the church of St. Zosima and St. Sabbatius of the Solovets monastery, were constructed in 1635-1638 by the cellarer of the monastery Alexander Bulatnikov, who had come to the Lavra from the Solovets Monastery. Before 1917, the building was used as a hospital for sick monks and as an almshouse for old and disabled ones.

On the outside wall of the monastery stone kitchen, constructed in the 15th century by the eminent Russian architect V. D. Yermolin, there was an icon of the Mother of God `Our Lady of Smolensk', carved in stone. When in 1730 a monastery monk, whose arms had been twisted by rheumatism, was ardently praying in front of it, a miracle took place - he was cured of his disease. In honour of this miraculous healing the Smolenskaya Church was erected on the site of the kitchen by order of the Empress Elizabeth in 1746-1748. The money for the construction was donated by Duke Razumovsky. The richly decorated miracle-working icon stood in the gilded carved iconostasis to the right of the Royal Gate.

In 1920-1930 the iconostasis was lost. To replace it, the iconostasis from one of the destroyed Moscow churches was installed here in 1956. The iconostasis was designed by architect Ukhtomsky. It is contemporary to the Church and is of the same style.

In 1814 the Theological Academy was transferred from Moscow to the Lavra, and a new complex of buildings for the needs of the Schools appeared. At present the Tsar's Chambers belong to the Academy.

The Church Archaeological Museum and the Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin are situated in the Tsar's Chambers. The wall paintings were created in 1987-1988 by the iconographers of the local Icon Painting School.

The Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra is a unique monument of the fortress architecture of the 16th-17 th centuries. The walls have 3 tiers, the towers have up to 6 tiers. The first tier was built by the tsar Ivan IV in the 16th century, the second and the third ones - in the 17th century, after the Polish siege.

The Church above the gateway, dedicated to the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, was built in 1693-1699. At present, confessions for the pilgrims are performed in it every morning.

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