Pechenga Monastery

It was founded in 1533 at the influx of the Pechenga River into the Barents Sea, 135 km west of modern Murmansk, by St. Tryphon, a monk from Novgorod.

Inspired by the model of the Solovki, Tryphon wished to convert the local Skolts to Christianity and to demonstrate how faith could flourish in the most inhospitable lands.

This revenge raid, and was part of the Russo-Swedish War of 1590–1595, is said to have been carried out by a Finnish peasant chief Pekka Antinpoika Vesainen, but the claim is contested.

Although the New Pechenga Monastery was eventually moved to the town itself, it was so sparsely settled that the Holy Synod deemed it wise to disband it in 1764.

As the Russian colonization of the Kola Peninsula accelerated in the late 19th century, the Pechenga Monastery was restored at its original location in 1886.