Monks eating in the St. John the Baptist skete at the Optina Pustyn Monastery, located 250km south of Moscow. Being founded supposedly in the 14th...
{"Image ImageDescription": "KOZELSK, KALUGA REGION, RUSSIA - MARCH 16, 2017: Monks eating in the St. John the Baptist skete at the Optina Pustyn Monastery, located 250km south of Moscow. Being founded supposedly in the 14th century, the monastery became a spiritual centre mostly because of its startsy [elders of a Russian Orthodox monastery who give guidance to others] in the 19th century. Hundreds of people came to the startsy for advice, among them prominent Russian writers Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Leo Tolstoy. During the Soviet time the monastery was closed and was given back to the Russian Orthdox Church in 1987. Now there are about 200 monks living in the Optina Pustyn. Alexander Ryumin/TASS (Photo by Alexander Ryumin\\TASS via Getty Images)"}