As part of this year’s Kyiv Day celebrations, the first guided tour will take place to sites with mysterious histories that have long remained little known. One such site is the Holy Ascension Florivsky Convent—the oldest women’s convent in the capital, where the mother of Hetman Ivan Mazepa is believed to be buried.
In a conversation with RBC-Ukraine, Roman Malenkov, head of the State Historical and Architectural Reserve “Ancient Kyiv,” shed light on the history of this unique site in Podil.
The Historical Heritage of the Florivsky Convent
The Florivsky Convent is the oldest women’s monastery in Kyiv, known for its Cossack Baroque-style church in Podil. The mother of Hetman Ivan Mazepa—Abbess Maria-Magdalene—is likely buried in the monastery’s cemetery. A distinctive feature of the monastery is Kyiv’s only rotunda church, which bears elements of Masonic aesthetics.
Although the monastery is currently under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, in 1917 it was one of the most pro-Ukrainian centers in Kyiv, supporting the first Ukrainian military unit—the Bohdanivsky Regiment.
Architectural uniqueness and “Masonic” aesthetics
The monastery’s refectory church is one of the oldest Baroque churches in Podil that has survived to this day. In the Ascension Cathedral, you can see unique Neo-Byzantine frescoes with elements of Cossack Baroque, which were restored in the 19th century by Andrii Melenskyi.
