Dormition Monastery, Staritsa, Orthodox monastery in Staritsa, Russia

The Dormition Monastery is an Orthodox complex on the bank of the Volga River in Staritsa, Russia, built with white stone walls, several churches, and five ornamental domes. The buildings date from different periods and form an ensemble set within a clearly defined enclosure along the riverbank.

According to tradition, the monastery was founded in 1110 by two monks from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Tryphon and Nikanor, at the Stary Bor tract; the settlement that grew beside it became the town of Staritsa in 1297. The first reliable written mention dates from 1312, when the monastery was destroyed in the war between the Tver and Moscow princes. It was refounded in the first half of the 16th century under Prince Andrei Ivanovich of Staritsa, and its heyday came in the 17th century.

The monastery takes its name from the Dormition of the Mother of God, to whom its 1530 white-stone cathedral is dedicated. The cathedral holds the relics of the schema-nun Pelagia, mother of Patriarch Job, and the bell tower with his burial chapel stands where he was first interred. The monastery was reopened in 1997 under Patriarch Alexy II.

The monastery stands on the Volga bank above the mouth of the Upper Staritsa, with the gatehouse and its cupola facing the river slope. The perimeter wall and corner tower seen today were rebuilt around 2013, so the enclosure is modern even where the churches are 16th-century. The grounds are those of a working men's monastery, so dress and behaviour follow church custom.

Patriarch Job died at the monastery in 1608 and was buried in a corner of the Dormition Cathedral; a four-tier bell tower with a chapel was built over the grave. In 1652, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, his relics were solemnly transferred to the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.