Coastal Monastery of St. Sergius, Orthodox monastery in Strelna, Russia.

The Coastal Monastery of St. Sergius is a walled complex of red brick and pale stone in Strelna, mixing Byzantine and Neoclassical forms. Its buildings stand behind a low balustrade with evenly spaced balusters; the multi-storey block on the left has a grey curved mansard roof and a small dormer, while the church to its right carries a central dome with a cross, ringed by smaller domes. The upper walls show pointed scalloped gables along the roofline, with a round drum and dome behind them.

Empress Anna Ioannovna granted the land on the Gulf of Finland to her confessor Varlaam, who moved a wooden Church of the Dormition from St. Petersburg and had it reconsecrated to St. Sergius of Radonezh on 12 May 1735. The monastery became independent of the Trinity Lavra in 1764, when it was raised to second-class status under its own archimandrite. Catherine II waited in the archimandrite's chambers here on 28 June 1762 for Peter III's written abdication.

The monastery remains a working place of worship and prayer for believers from the region and visitors seeking spiritual reflection. You can observe monks and pilgrims gathering for services in the cathedral and participating in the daily rhythm of monastic life.

The monastery stands in Strelna, on the south shore of the Gulf of Finland, about 19 versts from central St. Petersburg and reachable by suburban train to the Strelna or Sergievo station. The grounds are entered through the gate in the low balustrade wall; the main church with its central dome and the mansard-roofed residential block face the strip of rough grass. Several buildings were rebuilt or lost in the 1960s, so parts of the complex remain closed.

Before the revolution the monastery kept a fund of 350,000 rubles and supplied chaplains to the Russian navy by long tradition. Herman of Alaska, later canonized, spent five years here as a novice from about 1773 before leaving for Valaam.