Ornate golden domes of Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra rising up from the surrounding plain, it is a beacon of Ukrainian Orthodoxy (Moscow Patriarchate) on the edge of a largely Ukrainian Catholic region. The complex of the monastery includes the Assumption Cathedral, Trinity Cathedral, and Lavra bell tower with a height of 65 meters. According to legend the monastery on a high wooded hill was founded by monks of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra who fled from the invasion of the Tatars in 1240. The first chronicles about the Pochayiv monastery are from 1527. In 1597 the monastery received a gift from a local landowner Anna Goiskaya significant lands and the miraculous icon of the Mother of God. The greatest prosperity and development the monastery achieved during the reign of Father Superior Ioan Zhelezo – also known as Iov Pochayivskiy. Pochayiv is frequently packed, but tourists are still outnumbered by pilgrims visiting the Mother of God icon (1597) or the ‘footprint of the Virgin Mary’. The busiest religious festivals are the Feast of the Assumption on 28 August and the Feast of St Iov, a 17th-century Pochayiv abbot and the lavra’s most important monk, on 10 September.
Parking location – Pochayiv: 50.006758N 25.508111E (🚻)