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The Island of Anzer is the second big island of the Solovetsky Archipelago.
At the beginning of the 17th century Eleazar, a professed man in the Monastery, founded the first hermitage on the Anzer Island which became a place of solitude for the Monastery hermits. On the shore of the lake, at the mouth of the Troitskaya Guba (Trinity Bay) a wooden Troitskaya (Trinity) Church and several cells for monks were built. Thanks to the patronage of the Tsar family the Hermitage had been independent from the Solovetsky Monastery for a long time.
The ensemble of the Trinity Hermitage, though much damaged in the Soviet times, has survived to this day as it was formed in the 18-19th centuries.
One more hermitage, dedicated to Crucifixion of our Lord, was built at the beginning of the 18th century by the Tsar Petr Alekseyevich’s confessor who was professed as a monk under the name of Job. Following the orders of the Mother of God who appeared in front of him at the foot of the Golgotha Mountain Job built the hermitage on top the mountain. During his lifetime a wooden church dedicated to Crucifixion of our Lord was built, later in the 19th century a stone church was erected nearby. Both churches have survived to our days.
In the 19th century the Anzer Island hermitages became devotional centres of the Solovetsky Monastery and acquired an appearance of being well-organized households. Cells were arranged in stone buildings, they had their own farms, and there were good roads on the Island. The hermitages attracted numerous pilgrims; and new hotels were built for them.
When the Solovetsky Monastery was closed and the Solovetsky Concentration Camp was started, the Anzer hermitages shared the destiny of other Monastery settlements. The 6th department of the camp was opened on the Island. Since 1920’s, they had a nursery for commercial breeding of animals there, sables and polar foxes in particular.
At the end of the 1920’s a typhoid epidemic raged at the camp. The Golgotha-Crucifixion Hermitage was turned into a hospital where hundreds of prisoners died. On the Anzer Island priests were kept prisoners including the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church; Catholic priests were placed in the Troitskaya (Trinity) lifeboat station.
Today the Island of Anzer has been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Golgotha-Crucifixion Hermitage has revived its activity. As in earlier times it has very strict regulations. The Trinity lavra of St. Sergius helps to restore the Trinity Hermitage.
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