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# 📌 This building housed the theological seminary where, in 1788, the eminent statesman and jurist Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky studied
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-etom-zdanii-raspolagalas-dukhovnaia-seminariia-gde-v-1788-godu-uchilsia-vydaiushchiisia-gosudarstvennyi-deiatel-i-zakonoved-mikhail-mikhailovich-speranskii/
- Published: 2025-08-10T10:01:33.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:29:09.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Faith, Observations, Heritage, Education

📌 Also in this building: in 1767 a prison was opened for "raving convicts". From 1829 most of its prisoners were  
clergy and sectarians.  
Among the inmates were the soothsayer monk Avel, who foretold the fate of the Romanov dynasty;  
the Old Believer hierarchs Arkady, Alimpy, Konon and Gennady;  
the founders of sects: of the Skoptsy, K. Selivanov, and of the "Podgornovtsy", V. Podgorny. The monastery prison  
was closed in 1905.

In fact, the plaque about the seminary has been put up on a building that houses prison cells. It is known that the Suzdal Seminary was moved to the Monastery of the Saviour and St Euthymius in 1763, and that Speransky completed his studies precisely here in 1788\. Yet the information on the Monastery of the Saviour and St Euthymius, a monument inscribed on the UNESCO list, makes no mention of a seminary within it. As for Speransky, in Vladimir too there is a plaque stating that he studied there, at the Vladimir Theological Seminary, and likewise up to 1788\. The matter is that in 1778 the Suzdal Seminary was merged with the Vladimir and Pereyaslavl ones; the latter two were transferred to Suzdal, hence the muddle. The seminarians lived in the seminary courtyard, but, I hope, not in the prison block all the same

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_17545@10-08-2025_13-01-33.jpg)