Chernechchyna

The Okhtyrskyi Holy Trinity Monastery was founded in 1654 in a picturesque place on the top of Monastyrska Hill on the forested banks of the Vorskla.

The first builder of the monastery was hegumen Ioannikiy, who came to Okhtyrka with his brothers from the Lebedyn monastery beyond the Dnipro, destroyed by the Poles.

According to legend, the first wooden church was consecrated in the 17th century in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the monastery was originally called Annunciation. Later, a stone refectory church of the same name was built instead of a wooden one at the expense of the Okhtyrka colonel Fedir Osypov.

From 1720, according to the decree of Peter I, the abbot of the Okhtyrskyi monastery became the tsar's confessor Tymofiy Nadarzhynskyi. He died in 1729 and was buried in the Trinity Cathedral built by him. His son Yosyp Nadarzhynskyi built the stone Church of the Transfiguration with a fraternal refectory and bell tower at his own expense, and in 1741 – a hospital with the Church of Peter and Paul. The main shrine of the monastery was the miraculous Okhtyr icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Sorrowful Ones".

In 1917, the Okhtyrskyi monastery was closed, an asylum for orphans was placed in it, then a military unit. During the Second World War, the monastery buildings were badly damaged.

The revival of the Okhtyrskyi Holy Trinity Monastery began in 2002.