Mother Superior Stefana’s holy mountain

Lutsk — This year the convent temple in Zymne is going to see an especially moving and solemn Easter Day service not only because of the feast that all Orthodox Christians celebrate. The church service will include for the first time the performance of the local schoolchildren’s choir that sings religious and patriotic songs. This is a momentous event for the residents of Zymne, the temple’s parishioners, the nuns, and personally Hegumenia (Mother Superior) Stefana (secular name Valentyna Bandura). For one of her godly dreams is coming true.

Once, in a Vinnytsia cathedral, Mother Stefana was greatly impressed by the children’s choir which she says sang “so well, so prayerfully.” She thought there might be enough young talents in her Zymne, too, for young voices also sound differently. Bu not all of them can afford to study music and singing because it is on payment. This brought forth Ukraine’s first music school at a… cloister. Classes are conducted at a local secondary school just opposite the convent. The holy cloister provided funds to buy all the instruments: pipes, violins, and two pianos, one of them being digital. The music school is now a branch of the Ustyluh School of Arts. The convent also pays teachers their salary. Local secondary school Principal Alla Melnyk boasts that the Children’s Choir of the Religious and Patriotic Song twice successfully participated in Orthodox youth festivals. Had it not been for convent sponsorship, Zymne district’s music school would never have had this kind of equipment. And there would be no school, either… 

The Zymne convent, with Hegumenia Stefana at the head for the past 20 years, rose from ruins on the Holy Mountain near the ancient city of Volodymyr-Volynsky. Its thousand-year-long history (the cloister was founded by Grand Prince Volodymyr himself in 1001) has known various stages, including the time when militant atheists razed it to the ground. And it is Mother Stefana whom God assigned the difficult task of restoring the monument of national importance and reviving religious life in the convent. This was a very difficult work of obedience, but the Zymne convent deserves divine grace not only because of spiritual revival but also because it carries out important social work. The convent has been running a health camp for children from low-income families for about 10 years – with a very specific feature at that: classes are conducted… in English. The convent employs well-experienced specialists to teach children singing and drawing, while the nuns conduct Divinity and cooking lessons. The cloister also rents a gym for its pupils.

The Zymne convent is famous for having a miracle-working icon of the Mother of God, which helps vision-impaired people on condition of a devout prayer. Also by Divine Providence, His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine once arrived at the convent with the chief children’s ophthalmologist of Ukraine. At the time, the convent sheltered 10 vision-impaired children from problem families. Doctors helped the children and later performed surgery on two nuns. Someone hit upon an idea to open a charitable ophthalmologic facility at this Orthodox convent. The facility, now equipped with state-of-the-art devices, is open to all.

“And is there any other way for us to show love for the Lord and our neighbor than to care about this neighbor?” Mother Stefana asks.  

The Holy Mountain convent’s mother superior is marking her jubilee in a way that is typical of an Orthodox believer – a prayer in the temple and a repast.