Exactly when the patriarch will lead the consecration of the monastery place is still uncertain, but it will probably be sometime in September, one of the construction workers told BarentsObserver. The first service in the nearly finished main church is planned to be held in August.
Construction of the world’s northernmost monastery has been going on since 2008. People have come from all over Russia to participate in the building of the logged churches, houses, towers and walls that will make up the Trifon of Pechenga monastery when it is finished.
The monastery is being rebuilt at the same place where it was founded by the monk Trifon in 1533, by the influx of the Pechenga River into the Barents Sea, 135 km west of modern Murmansk.