When Daniil's son became ruler, he neglected the monastery and let it fall into ruin, and it stayed that way until 200 years later when Ivan the Terriable restored it. Seems unnatural that Ivan would do something like fixing up an old monastary, right? Well it is, it is supernatural.

      The legend says that in the late 15th century, while riding along the Moscow River, Prince Ivan III passed the place where Prince Daniil's grave once stood. Suddenly one of the horses reared, flinging him out of the saddle and a apparition appeared before him claiming to be Prince Danill Moskovsky himself. He repremanded Ivan for his delinquicy and neglect of his grave and the monastery he founded. From then on the Grand Princes remembered Daniil in regular prayers and Ivan restored the monastery.

      In 1917 the monastery closed down and became a refuge for priests driven out by the Bolsheviks or because they disagreed with the new practices, then in 1931 some of it was torn down and remodeled to become a juvenile reform center.

      Before the 18 bells were confiscated to be melted by Stalin, an American collector, Charles R. Crane bought them and donated them to Harvard University. The bells are brass, ornated with etchings of Jesus Christ, Mary, and angels, and vary in weight from 13 tons to 22 pounds. After many years of negotiations, the bells were sent back to Russia through Viktor Vekselberg's contributions of millions of dollars.

      Finnaly in 1983, Danilov Monastery once again became a church, and houses the Moscow Patriarch.