Historiography
The name of the Pokrovsky Monastery by Bozhedomsky provokes us to precede its historical description with a brief review of the Wretched houses on whose place it was erected in Moscow, and the remarks about the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God to whom it is dedicated. Both Wretched houses and the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God are closely connected with the history of the monastery in spiritual and civil ways.
In Moscow, as well as in other Russian cities, since the old days, Wretched houses (also cold “Skudelnitsy”) were built to bury wanderers, Jews, who came from distant countries to worship God in the Temple of Jerusalem. There were no special cemetery there, in case of sudden death. In Russia, such places were called «skudelnitsy», «wretched houses», «zhalniki», «buivischa» and «gnoischa». Bodies of the poor, wanderers which had been caught by sudden and violent death were brought here and put in the sheds with pits. In comparison, others, admonished before the demise of St. Secrets, were buried near by the churches.
Previously we talked about Wretched houses, we shall move to the feast in memory of the miraculous appearance of Our Lady. Theotokos appeared to the fool in Christ St. Andrei and his follower St.Epiphany in Vlahern Temple (Constantinople, y.911). It is important to mention the image of this divine vision of the fool in Christ St. Andrei who was Slav by origin, about the establishment the feast of Pokrov Russia and about ancient churches, which had been constructed to memorize this miracle.
The royal Pokrovsky on the Wretched Houses monastery was founded in honor of this feast of the Mother of God. It has replaced wooden Velikoknyazheskiy monastery in the Sadeh Beliy Gorod, at the Semenovskaya outpost. The original founder of the Bozhedsky Pokrovsky Monastery was Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich.
The churches on the western side are surrounded by a cemetery. The graves of the dead are here on God's nave, under the protection of the Mother of God and under the cross.
Monks of the Intercession Monastery. 1928
Sit (from left to right): Hieromonk Mefody (Ivanov), Hieromonk Nathanael (Skalkin), Archimandrite Veniamin (Milov), Hieromonk Theodosius (Tarasov), monk Methodius (Laskin).
Stand (from left to right): Seryozha, about. Yermei, Hieromonk Evtikhy (Tarasov), Hieromonk Nile (Bolotov), Foka Karpovich Shnyruk - regent, Kolya, hieromonk Danakt (Kalashnikov), Grigory Khokhlov - watchman