Study Facility - Russia - Diveyevo

Diveyevo lies 12 km from Sarov and is the location of the Monastery of Seraphim-Diveyevo of which St Seraphim was spiritual guardian and where his relics lie today.

With support from the Monastery of Seraphim-Diveyevo, we have staged an international conference in Diveyevo, where we have also established temporary bases each year to support research. In 2003 we staged an extensive exhibition in the House of Culture for the celebrations of the centenary of St Seraphim's canonisation.

We see the need for a study facility in Russia that maintains a study library, including a complete collection of our developing resources, access points for the 'I Witness' electronic archive, video and research facilities. We wish to develop this facility in Diveyevo.

The facility will be:

• a place of welcome
• for the visitors from Russia and abroad, and for the local people.
• a multi-purpose facility
• with display & exhibition area, library, research space and educational facilities
• with all displays in both Russian & English
• a place of education
• including talks, lectures and seminars
• by both local people from Diveyevo and Sarov
• and also visiting scholars with particular knowledge about the tradition.
• a base for continuing research
• for continuing the 'Living Testimony' programme
• the gathering of testimonies from those witnesses who still remember early decades of the last century.
• a place of dissemination
• of archive collections, including a bi-lingual multimedia archive of videotaped interviews, written accounts, research, books and materials, for use as an educational and research tool, with access through electronic work stations.
• Supporting Publication
• deriving from the educational and research work
• for both academics and lay people
• videos, children's books, research papers

Why?

To support and develop important research & educational programmes and to enable studies of a new generation of scholars, students & pilgrims discovering the rich spiritual, theological, historical and cultural treasures of the tradition.

Benefits

This will offer a significant resource and provide a unique opportunity to study the tradition within which one is simultaneously immersed.

Progress to date

In Diveyevo we have setup temporary bases for periods to support research, and have staged an extensive exhibition in the House of Culture for the centenary celebrations, through which many leads for continuing research have arisen. With the Theological Department - Sarov Institute of Physics & Technology, with whom we have conducted research, we staged a conference, “Theology & Life”, with support from the Monastery of Seraphim-Diveyevo. We have established strong ties with the University of Nizhni Novgorod with whom we have entered into partnership and conducted research in the region since 2001. We currently maintain a collection of materials at the University Department of Philology.