Inkerman Cave Monastery
Place in Sevastopol, Crimea
title: "Inkerman Cave Monastery" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["buildings-and-structures-in-sevastopol", "cave-monasteries", "christianity-in-crimea", "cultural-heritage-monuments-in-sevastopol", "eastern-orthodox-monasteries-in-ukraine", "monasteries-in-crimea", "monasteries-of-the-ukrainian-orthodox-church-(moscow-patriarchate)", "objects-of-cultural-heritage-of-russia-of-federal-significance", "russian-orthodox-monasteries-in-russia", "tourist-attractions-in-sevastopol", "tourist-attractions-in-crimea"] description: "Place in Sevastopol, Crimea" topic_path: "society/religion" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkerman_Cave_Monastery" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Place in Sevastopol, Crimea ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox building"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Inkerman Cave Monastery |
| native_name | |
| image | Inkerman Cave Monastery chapel.jpg |
| image_caption | One of the Inkerman Cave Monastery chapels in 2012. |
| map_type | |
| pushpin_relief | 1 |
| pushpin_label | Inkerman Cave Monastery |
| map_caption | |
| location | Inkerman, Crimea |
| coordinates | |
| start_date | 1850 |
| owner | Russian Orthodox Church |
| embedded | |
| mapframe-zoom | 16 |
| mapframe-wikidata | yes |
| mapframe-marker | religious-christian |
| :: |
| name = Inkerman Cave Monastery | native_name = | native_name_lang = | logo = | logo_size = | logo_caption = | image = Inkerman Cave Monastery chapel.jpg | image_size = | image_caption = One of the Inkerman Cave Monastery chapels in 2012. | map_type = Sevastopol#Ukraine Crimea#Ukraine | pushpin_relief = 1 | pushpin_label = Inkerman Cave Monastery | image_map = | map_caption = | location = Inkerman, Crimea | address = | location_city = | location_country =
- (de jure)
- (de facto) | coordinates = | former_names = | alternate_names = | etymology = | status = | cancelled = | topped_out = | building_type = | architectural_style = | material = | classification = | altitude = | namesake = | groundbreaking_date = | start_date = 1850 | stop_date = | est_completion = | completion_date = | opened_date = | inauguration_date = | closing_date = | demolition_date = | destruction_date = | cost = | ren_cost = | client = | owner = Russian Orthodox Church | affiliation = | height = | architectural = | structural_system = | size = | floor_count = | floor_area = | elevator_count = | grounds_area = | architect = | architecture_firm = | developer = | engineer = | known_for = | website = | embed = | references = | footnotes = | embedded = | mapframe = yes | mapframe-zoom = 16 | mapframe-wikidata = yes | mapframe-marker = religious-christian NOTOC The Inkerman Monastery of St. Clement (; ) is a cave monastery in a cliff rising near the mouth of the Black River, in the city of Inkerman, de facto administered as part of the sea port of Sevastopol but de jure belonging to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
History
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Inkerman-c1910.jpg" caption="A postcard from the 1910s"] ::
It was founded in 1850 on the site of a medieval Byzantine monastery where the relics of St. Clement were supposedly kept before their removal to San Clemente by Saints Cyril and Methodius. The early Christians are supposed to have kept the relics in a grotto which could be visited only on the anniversary of his death. William Rubruck described it as a church "built by the hands of angels".
The Byzantine monastery, probably founded in the 8th century by icon-venerators fleeing persecution in their homeland, had eight chapels of several storeys and an inn accessed by a stairway. The caves of Inkerman were surveyed by Peter Simon Pallas in 1793 and looted by the British in the 1850s.
The Russians added two churches, commemorating the Borki Incident (1895) and the Crimean War (1905). The monastery was damaged by the 1927 Crimean earthquakes and was closed between 1931 and 1991. During World War II the caves housed the officers of a Soviet army defending Sevastopol. Several churches were taken down by the Soviets.
In 2019, weekly services were resumed in the Church of Clement of Rome with the blessing of Archimandrite Kallinik (Chernyshyov), the dean of the monasteries of the Crimean diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
References
References
- "The iournal of frier William de Rubruquis". Ebooks.adelaide.edu.au.
- "КРЫМСКАЯ область". Ua.vlasenko.net.
- "ИНКЕРМАНСКИЙ СВЯТО-КЛИМЕНТОВСКИЙ МОНАСТЫРЬ".
- (26 January 2019). "В Свято-Климентовском Инкерманском монастыре г. Севастополя возобновлены богослужения в пещерном храмовом комплексе". Монастырский вестник.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::