Vitebsk. Holy Spirit Monastery.

The monastery was founded at a wooden church in honor of the Holy Spirit, built in the first half of the 14th century in the western part of Zaruchevye (Zaruchevsky Sloboda). The second wife of Prince Olgerd, the Tver princess Juliania, founded a women's monastery at the church, where, according to legend, she herself took monastic vows under the name of Martha. She died soon after and was buried in the Holy Spirit Monastery.

After the conclusion of the church union of 1596, the Church of the Holy Spirit, like others, experienced oppression, which intensified after the murder of the Uniate Archbishop Josaphat Kuntsevich by Vitebsk residents. The monastery suffered during the war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1654-1667, but was rebuilt in 1661 with donations from the townspeople. The women's monastery at the Church of the Holy Spirit was restored in 1697 as a Uniate-Bazilian monastery. In 1796, a stone church of St. John the Theologian in the Baroque style was built to replace the wooden one.

After the Uniates returned to the bosom of Orthodoxy in 1839, the Holy Spirit Convent for women became Orthodox again, and its ancient name was returned to it. But by the middle of the 19th century, the monastery fell into disrepair. In 1855, only six elderly nuns remained here. Soon, the convent was closed and turned into a women's prison. Thanks to the efforts of the Vitebsk community, at the end of the 19th century, the prison was moved to another location, and a women's Theological School was located within the walls of the convent. In 1898, a new three-story convent building was erected with funds from the Polotsk-Vitebsk diocese. At the same time, the church in honor of the Holy Spirit was rebuilt in the style of Moscow architecture.

After the 1917 revolution, the theological school was liquidated and the church was closed. In 1936, the archives of the Holy Spirit Monastery were destroyed. During the redevelopment of Vitebsk in 1947, the church building was demolished "as unnecessary". On May 3, 2001, the Synod of the Belarusian Orthodox Church blessed the revival of the Holy Spirit Convent. Today, the monastery is located in the building of the center of spiritual and cultural revival of the Vitebsk diocese, where the St. Olga Church and the nuns' cells are located.

The Vitebsk Women's Theological School is located at the monastery - an educational institution that trains specialists such as: a choirmaster, an icon painter, and a florist-decorator.