Le Skit du Saint-Esprit
7, avenue des Bruyères Information S.I. au 01.34.61.49.79
Installed in the West of Mesnil, in the Wood of Fay, the side of the Way of Bellepanne, the skit du Saint-Esprit is a splendid architectural site built in the pure tradition byzantine. With immediate proximity several cells are disseminated sheltering each one a monk of the Russian orthodoxe Church. The name "Skit" comes from the Greek form "Skiti", of the proper name "Scété", left the desert of Egype, in the south of Alexandria where Saint-Macaire organized, in IVème century, the existence of the first monks. It was the vice-chancellor of the community of emigrants attached to the patriarchal church of Meudon, the Father Andre Serguienko (1902-1973) who discovered in 1938, the ground on which was built this skit. After the war, this last transmitted the direction of Skit to the Reverend Père archimandrite Serge Schevitch (1904-1987). One of its spiritual sons, the Father Gregoire Krug, monk iconographe, undertook to cover frescos the interior of the church. When he died in 1969, after having spent twenty years in Skit du Saint-Esprit, the Krug Father left, as well there as in other Russian orthodoxe churches (in particular in France, in England, in Italy or Holland), a whole of considerable icons and first importance, insofar as, by the return to older models, théologiquement and formally purer, they mark a stage in the history of the iconography. These frescos and these icons contributed much to the fact that Skit du Saint-Esprit (oldest in activity) is now known orthodoxe mediums and in general monk of the whole world.
Thanks to a prefectoral decree, the Father Gregoire Krug could be buried with the bedside of the church and its tomb became an orthodoxe place of pilgrimage. The Father Barsanuphle, monk since 1964 in Skit du Saint-Esprit, for which it is responsible, completed the architectural whole by the construction of a narthex and a dome on the sanctuary.
On 19 March 2013, the Skit du Saint-Esprit was given the label "Patrimoine du XXe siècle" awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Communication, including 75 remarkable religious buildings in the Ile-de-France.
The individual visits or in groups, are carried out on reservation near the Tourist office of Mesnil Saint Denis. Tariffs: Group: 7,00 €/personne - Individual: 8,00 €/personne
© Olivier FAUVEAU - 2001