Metropolitan Alexander got acquainted with the progress of the restoration of the complex of the Iversko-Petropavlovsk Convent in the village of Oktyabrskoye

March 30, 2024. Kostanay region. During his archpastoral visit to the Kostanay diocese, Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan visited the restored Iversko- Petropavlovsk convent in the village of Oktyabrskoye.

The head of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan was accompanied by: Secretary of the Kostanay Diocese Hieromonk Gennady (Burdyuzha), Head of the Metropolitan Secretariat Hieromonk Prokhor (Endovitsky), Protodeacon Vladimir Syrovatsky, Protodeacon Alexander Mokiy, Deacon Alexander Piven, Deacon Sergiy Slesarchuk.

The Metropolitan was met by Hieromonk Methodius (Chulkov), the nuns of the monastery led by senior nun Nika (Otroshchenko), the builders and landscapers of the monastery.

Upon arrival, the archpastor, together with the clergy, visited the Petropavlovsk Church and performed glorification at the Iveron Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after which he spoke with the nuns of the restored monastery. The building of the temple in the name of the supreme apostles Peter and Paul was the courtyard of the Iversky convent in the city of Kustanay, which was destroyed in 1932. In 1992, the courtyard building was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. For many years, the church in the village of Oktyabrskoye was captured by schismatics, but in June 2023, the church building again became the property of the Kostanay Diocese of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District.

Nun Nika (Otroshchenko) gave the hierarch a sightseeing tour and talked about the history of the reconstruction of the monastery.

Metropolitan Alexander got acquainted with the progress of the restoration of the monastery building and the improvement of the territory. The hierarch gave appropriate instructions to diocesan employees and secular specialists, and also made a number of proposals for the construction of the monastery.

The head of the Metropolitan District thanked the clergy and benefactors restoring the shrine for their efforts, and blessed further work on the revival of the Iversko- Petropavlovsk convent.

On May 25, 1894, by decree of the Holy Synod number 2281, the Kustanai Iverskaya women's community was officially opened, which included 25 cell attendants of the peasant class. By the spring of 1895, there were already 80 sisters in the community, they also provided shelter for the blind, poor and sick. In connection with this expansion of the community, on May 24, 1895, permission was given by the Spiritual Consistory to begin building a refectory church, according to the approved plan, as well as to build more adapted cells.
On August 8, 1895, according to the instructions of the lot, nun Anna (in the world Elena Stefanovna Borodina), who contributed more than others to the founding of the community, was approved as the abbess of the Kustanai Iveron women's community; Ksenia Sadchikova was appointed treasurer.
On September 30, 1895, a significant event took place - the dean priest Nikolai Malyshev consecrated the refectory church of the Kustanai Iveron women's community in the name of the Holy Trinity, and from October of the same year, services began to be held at the church on all Sundays, holidays and three weeks.
On October 7, 1897, a report numbered 9986 was written addressed to Bishop Vladimir of Orenburg and Ural on behalf of the abbess of the Iveron women's community, nun Anna, with a request for permission to build a wooden church at the community. In 1899, changes were made to the original project. The design cost of construction was 7181 rubles. In 1901, on September 29, this temple was consecrated by Dean Archpriest Pavel Podbelsky in honor of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. Eight more clergy took part in the consecration of the temple. On October 3 and 4, 1901, monastic tonsure took place in the newly built church.
The monastery had two courtyards: an official one (near the village of Zhdanovka) and an unofficial one (the modern address is the village of Oktyabrsky, Kostanay district), the land under which was leased from the local population. On the site of the official courtyard, near the village of Zhdanovka, a prayer house was built and consecrated on May 29, 1909 in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva.
Since 1903, the abbess, Abbess Anna, regularly submitted petitions to the higher authorities that the lands of the unofficial metochion be transferred to the permanent possession of the monastery due to the fact that the site near the village of Zhdanovka turned out to be unfavorable for agricultural cultivation. Abbess Anna personally came to St. Petersburg to resolve this issue, where she met with Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna. And in 1913, the state gave the land in the area of the modern village of Oktyabrsky, Kostanay region, into permanent possession of the monastery. Thus, the site near Zhdanovka was seized, and all buildings were moved to a new location. In 1917, on the territory of the courtyard (in the current village of Oktyabrsky) a church was built in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
Significant changes in the life of the monastery occurred after the October Revolution. In 1920, to register the monastic property, a commission was created from representatives of the UZemDepartment, Komkhoz and the Management Department, which was instructed to “immediately begin work on registering the monastery property.” On November 30, 1925, the building of the convent was nationalized, which was given over to the department of public education. On January 15, 1930, according to Protocol No. 57, the monastery was closed, the bell was removed and scrapped. From January 24, 1930, according to Protocol No. 59, the monastery began to be used “... for ShKM and the Agricultural Technical School, having concluded a rental agreement for the sale of monastic property.” The residential buildings of the monastery were now used for warehouses, a pig farm and a rabbitry. Before the revolution, several dozen nuns and about 140 novices labored in the Iversky Monastery. After the monastery was closed, many of them remained to live in the city, living privately, in private apartments and houses. In 1929, the monastery’s confessor, Archpriest Pyotr Kasenkov, was sentenced “to 3 years in a concentration camp for opposing the closure of the convent.” Nun Anna Danilova was also convicted along with him. In 1937, mass repressions began, which also affected the nuns. In the case of the “Churchmen of the Cemetery Church” in August-November, 39 people from among the clergy, monastics and parishioners were arrested, 32 of them were shot (24 of them nuns) and buried in an unknown mass grave, 7 were sentenced to imprisonment in a correctional labor camp for 10 years . Among those convicted and executed were also the monastery’s confessor, Archpriest Pyotr Kasenkov, and Abbess Paraskeva Vodyasova, who at that time was the abbess of the monastery. By 1961, out of 180 nuns, only 25 remained alive. Many of them labored in Kostanay, others in the village of Stepanovka (Mendykarinsky district, Kostanay region), and later some ended their earthly journey in the village of Borovsky, Mendykarinsky district, where they were cared for by Archpriest Nikolai Moiseev. In 1932, the monastery church in Kustanay was destroyed, but some buildings survived: along Krasnoselskaya Street near Teletovyshka you can still see the monastery buildings. In one of them there is a School of Technical Creativity, in the other there is a children's psychoneurological boarding house, the rest are in private ownership. In the village of Oktyabrsky (Kazakhstanets), by 1990, a building that previously belonged to a convent had been preserved, where currently there is a church in honor of the holy supreme apostles Peter and Paul.
In 1992, this building was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1996-97 the rector of the parish in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul in the village of Oktyabrsky, priest Gennady Subbotin, transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. After the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 2007, the banned priest Gennady Subbotin left the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and went into schism under the leadership of Agafangel (Pashkovsky). In the 1990s and 2000s, Subbotin G. did not complete the registration of ownership of both the church building and the land plot, and therefore a trial was held in 2020. The plaintiff in the court was the Kostanay and Rudny diocese. By court decision, the church building and land plot were transferred to the ownership of the Kostanay and Rudny diocese of the Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan on June 2, 2023. On July 12, 2023, a minor consecration of the temple took place in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul.
Currently, there is a revival of the monastery: pilgrims come to the village of Oktyabrsky to help restore the community. There are also cells in which novices and sisters of mercy live. The community is headed by nun Nika (Otroshchenko).