Security Service Passed to Clergy Declassified Materials on Crimean Monastery

The materials include resolutions of Soviet investigative bodies on the confiscation of valuable material of the monastery, forms of arrested representatives of the clergy, and minutes of their interrogations.

CRIMEA — The Security Service of Ukraine passed to Metropolitan Lazar of Simferopol and Crimea of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate an album with photocopies of declassified archive materials regarding the nuns of the Toplov Monastery, reports E-Crimea agency.  RISU’s Ukrainian-language web page posted this story on January 13, 2010.

According to the press service of the Security Service of Ukraine, the materials include resolutions of Soviet investigative bodies on the confiscation of valuable material of the monastery, forms of arrested representatives of the clergy, minutes of their interrogations as well as two historical essays about the monastery written by the nuns.

The women’s monastery of St. Paraskeva in Topl between Feodosia and Staryi Krym was opened in the 1860s. By the end of the 19^th century, over 200 people lived there.

With the advent of the the Soviet regime, the monastery was robbed and a collective farm “Godless” was established on its land. The decision to liquidate the monastery was passed by the Soviet authorities in 1929. The nuns and priest were arrested, accused of anti-Soviet agitation and convicted to be imprisoned and exiled.