Krásny Brod Monastery: ruins and pilgrimage site

“The Rusyn Devín”

The Monastery of the Descent of the Holy Spirit near the village of Krásny Brod in the Medzilaborce district is one of the oldest and most important monasteries of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia. Because of its long history and its significance for the Rusyns it is often called “the Rusyn Devín”. Today picturesque ruins of the old church stand next to a new Basilian monastery.

According to tradition, a blind beggar recovered his sight here on the Friday before Pentecost after washing his eyes with water from a spring. People built a chapel and placed an icon of the Mother of God in it, and at the end of the 14th century Prince Theodore Koriatovych built a larger wooden church and a monastery, where Basilian monks settled. In 1614 a union with Rome was to be concluded in Krásny Brod, but unrest broke out during the consecration of the new church, and the union was only signed in Uzhhorod in 1646.

The monastery was destroyed several times. In 1603 it was burnt on the orders of Count Valentine Drugeth — only the miraculous icon survived. The second disaster came during the uprising of Francis II Rákóczi (1703–1711), after which the monastery lay in ruins for two decades; the stone church was completed in 1752, as a Church Slavonic inscription in the nave records. In 1821 the first bishop of the Prešov eparchy, Gregory Tarkovich, was consecrated here. The third destruction came with the First World War: in early 1915, during fighting between Russian and Austrian troops, shells hit the church and buildings, and the monks moved to the monastery in Máriapócs.

In the 18th and 19th centuries the monastery ran a school with humanities, philosophy and theology sections, and by the late 19th century its library held about 2,000 volumes, including the Ostroh Bible of 1581. Three times a year Rusyn pilgrims gathered here, and young couples often married in the monastery church — which is why the authorities dismissively called the pilgrimages “bride fairs”.

What to see

• The ruins of the monastery church of 1752 — a tall tower, arches and thick stone walls in a meadow.
• The Chapel of the Protection of the Mother of God and the new Church of the Protection, which keeps the 14th-century Krásny Brod icon of the Mother of God — a rarity of icon painting in Slovakia. In 1950 it was hidden to save it from confiscation when the communist regime suppressed the Greek Catholic Church; in 1968 it returned to the faithful, and in the 1970s it was restored by Mikuláš Jordán.
• The new Basilian monastery, consecrated in 2002 a few dozen metres from the ruins.
• A First World War military cemetery next to the ruins: 10 mass graves and 90 individual graves, in all about 1,006 unknown soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies.

Practical information

Krásny Brod lies in the Laborec valley between Humenné and Medzilaborce. There is a railway stop called “Monastyr” near the monastery on the Humenné — Medzilaborce line, so you can come by train; by car, follow the road along the Laborec. The ruins and the cemetery are freely accessible and free of charge. The new monastery and church are active: keep quiet, dress modestly and do not disturb services. Most pilgrims come at Pentecost by the Julian calendar, when a plenary indulgence has been granted here since 1806.

Nearby

In Medzilaborce is the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art. To the west, near Svidník, are the Lemko wooden churches of Bodružal and Ladomirová, and to the south-east the Starina reservoir on the edge of Poloniny National Park.

Photos: Pierre Bona, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; Ing.Mgr.Jozef Kotulič, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Teslaton, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.