The Russian Academy Of Arts

On September 15, 2008 in Moscow was inaugurated Marpho-Mariinskaya Cloister. On September 16, Alexi II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia consecrated  Pokrovski Cathedral, principle church of the Convent which is going to mark its centenary in 2009. 

Marpho-Mariinskaya Convent on Bolshaya Ordynka was founded by Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fiodorovna Romanov in 1909 and closed after the Revolution  in 1926. In 1992, through the Act of the Moscow Government the Convent was returned to the Moscow Patriarchate.  The extensive restoration of the architecture complex started in 2006.

At present, the Convent provides an orphan asylum, nurse service and Russian Orthodox school.

According to the Convent’s Mother Superior, the buildings of Marpho-Mariinskaya Convent have been recreated as precisely to the original as it was possible. The restorers managed to revive some authentic fragments while other interiors and exteriors were renovated in accordance with old photographs and archives documents.

Among the buildings restored is a house of the Grand Duchess who was the first prioress of the Convent.  The historical interior of the house has been adorned with two portraits by Vasili Nesterenko, People’s Artist of Russia and Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts. In the gala portrait of the Secular Hall the Grand Duchess in depicted in a ball dress. The second portrait shows Elizaveta Fiodorovna  in her monastic clothes and starts the house-museum exposition.

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