Khutynsky monastery

Saviour Transfiguration St. Varlaam Convent in the village of Khutyn (Russian: Хутынский Спасо-Преображенский Варлаамиев женский монастырь) is situated on the right bank of the Volkhov near Novgorod, Russia. It was founded as a men's monastery in 1192 by the monastery's first hegumen, the former Novgorodian boyar Oleksa Mikhailovich, whose monastic name was Varlaam. The main church of the monastery, the Church of the Transfiguration, was consecrated by Archbishop Gavril of Novgorod the following year, the same year Varlaam died. According to Varlaam's saint's Life, tsar Ivan III in 1471 visited the cloister and wished to see the relics of Saint Varlaam, but when they opened the saint's tomb, there was fire. Ivan's son Vasily III ordered the old main church of the monastery demolished and replaced with a noble six-pillared edifice. The new church, completed by 1515 and consecrated by Metropolitan Varlaam, was evidently patterned after the Assumption Cathedral in Rostov. It was the first piece of Muscovite architecture in the Russian North-West and a venerated model for many subsequent churches in the region. The annex of St. Gabriel, added to the cathedral in 1646, received its present name after the poet Gavrila Derzhavin had been interred here in 1816. The refectory with St Varlaam Church was built on behest of Ivan IV in 1552. The Neoclassical belltower dates from the reign of Catherine the Great.