Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra Live Cam

The Pochaiv Lavra stands on a hill above the surrounding plain in Ternopil oblast, in the west of Ukraine. The webcam looks across the white walls and the golden domes.

A monastery has been on this rock since about 1240, when monks are said to have fled here from Kyiv ahead of the Mongols. It is one of a handful of houses in the Orthodox world holding the rank of lavra.

It changed hands with the borders: Greek Catholic through the eighteenth century, Orthodox again from 1831, Polish between the wars, Soviet after 1945. The main cathedral was built in the 1770s and the bell tower, at sixty-five metres, was added in the 1860s.