Optina

Optina Pustyn, commonly referred to as Optina Monastery, is a Russian Orthodox monastery located in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, near the town of Kozelsk. It is renowned for its historical role as a center of Russian Orthodox spirituality and for the tradition of the Optina Elders, a group of elder monks who provided spiritual guidance to monks and laypeople during the 18th and 19th centuries. The monastery developed from a small hermitic settlement into a substantial monastic community offering ascetic life, liturgical worship, scriptural learning, and charitable work. Pilgrims and seekers traveled to Optina to seek counsel from the starets, and the site became an influential forum for prayers, writings, and religious practice in Imperial Russia.

In the 19th century the Optina Elders attracted readers and thinkers from across Russian society, contributing to religious and cultural life of the period. The monastery endured through various reforms but suffered under Soviet rule, when many religious buildings were suppressed or repurposed. After the late 20th century reforms, the monastery was restored as a living religious community and a center for pilgrimage and spiritual education. Today, Optina operates as an active monastery within the Russian Orthodox Church, maintaining a number of churches and monastic buildings dating from the 17th to 19th centuries. It remains a site of religious devotion, architectural interest, and historical study, drawing visitors seeking contemplation, retreat, and scholarly information about Russian monasticism and its influence on Russian culture.