Big Monasteries To Visit

This is a splendid photo made by my friend Наталья when she visited Pochajevskaja Lavra, one of the holy places in Ukraina. I remembered that I've never mentioned this country in my blog and asked her to post her photo here.

Lavra or Laura originally meant a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. Later a big orthodox male monastery.

The Lavras I've seen are very beautiful. I was in Kiew -open this page to see this really splendid photo- and in Sankt-Petersburg in Alexandr Nevsky Lavra(Photo on the left). I was in similar constructions here in Italy too. Not far from us (about 100 km) we have a Certosa di Padula (52.000 mq!) where we, our archeological group, were guides in a modern artists exhibition. By the way, those artists were closed as monks in that ex-monastery with a task to born works of art in one month.

In any case, working or not, these monasteries have very great histories. And are very interesting to visit and to study.