The crown of creation, or about the Church of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Pokrovka. Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God on Pokrovka Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka

The “eighth wonder of the world” may appear in the capital - the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Pokrovka is going to be restored. Unique monument The 17th century was razed to the ground in the 1930s. But, fortunately, there is no need to rewrite this “architectural poem” - the drawings of the temple have been preserved. How do they plan to revive the Russian Notre Dame?

A holy place can be empty: a site in the very center of Moscow, where land is worth its weight in gold, has miraculously not been built up in the 70 years since the demolition of the ancient church.

“The main part of the temple was located on the territory where the park is now, occupying approximately two-thirds of the territory of this park, and what is most valuable is that almost the entire foundation was preserved under this park,” notes a deputy of the Basmanny municipal district, chairman of the commission for construction, reconstruction and land use Evgeny Budnik.

For the first time, activists officially announce a formalized initiative - to restore the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka in its original place. It was called the eighth wonder of the world, an architectural poem, a frozen cloud of red and white lace, the Russian Notre Dame. According to legend, Napoleon ordered guards to be posted here so that the church would not be burned or looted. Rastrelli admired her, Pushkin and Dostoevsky attended services. They say that Shchusev, having seen her, decided to become an architect, and Likhachev - to devote his life to ancient Russian culture. The temple seemed to have an influence on human destinies, Andrei Abrikosov is sure. His great-great-grandfather Alexei Abrikosov was the permanent head of this church for almost 30 years.

“On the old postcards that our family has, there is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was subsequently destroyed, and the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka. And you can’t imagine, my heart ached incredibly - how I would like them to be restored,” Andrei says in an interview with the program Abrikosov.

The temple was demolished in the mid-1930s under the pretext of widening the roadway. But you can still see the frozen cloud of red and white lace. After the destruction, some of the wreckage of the original parts of the Church of the Assumption was transferred to the Donskoy Monastery. It was a pile of stones, but it turned out that Soviet architects managed to draw up drawings of the doomed temple.

“Thanks to these drawings, in the 1950s, those preserved elements that we now see were recreated. This, of course, is the portal, and the platbands, and the entrance to the porch of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” explains Hieromonk Thomas, the housekeeper of the Don Stavropegic Monastery (Demchuk).

One of these unique drawings also preserves the diagrams of the iconostasis. Even the icons themselves are kept in the Novodevichy Convent. This will not be just a remake, but a recreation based on genuine parts.

“Pokrovka will only gain from this. Now these preserved parts are located in different parts of the city, and if we connect them on Pokrovka, then it will also be a new very powerful tourist attraction, where people will come to study Russian history,” the council member is convinced Moscow branch of VOOPIIK, architect-restorer Nikolai Avvakumov.

Now we need to collect documents for the land, prepare for archaeological work, and look for money. The first step in the revival of the most famous parish church of old Moscow is ready to be taken by August. They want to build a small temporary chapel in the place where the church altar was, and create a community around it. Then the prospect of restoring the church will become much more visible.

The Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka is rightfully considered the pinnacle of development of pre-Petrine church architecture and one of the cornerstones of Russian architecture of modern times. In 1936, it was destroyed under the pretext that the gallery protruding onto the sidewalk interfered with pedestrian traffic. It seemed that the masterpiece was lost forever and in the early 2000s there were already talks about building a hotel in its place. But in 2004, a perfectly preserved wall of the lower tier of the church bell tower was discovered as part of a neighboring house...

Materials from the restoration of fragments of the bell tower, carried out by the Center for Historical and Urban Planning Research, are published for the first time.

Explanatory note to the preliminary design for the restoration of the clergy house of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, located at Pokrovka Street No. 5/16, p. 5-6.

The project was developed by TsIGI, CEO V.I.Sheredega. Authors of the project: B.E. Pasternak, T.S. Borisova, with the participation of A.V. Kuznetsov and A.V. Mozhaev.

Brief historical background

The surviving building of the clergy house, directly adjacent to the church bell tower, was formed as a result of several construction periods.
One of the most ancient graphic images of the territory of the church complex is “Petrov’s drawing” from the 1600s, which shows two churches. It is known that in 1652 a blessed charter was given for the construction of a new stone church on the site of the previous ones, “but it did not stand for long.”
In 1696-1699, the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary “in Kotelniki” with a bell tower was erected on the territory under study. Construction was carried out at the expense of the merchant I.M. Sverchkov. Among the columns of the church portal there was a carved inscription: “In the summer of 7204, October 25, the work of human hands was done in the name of Petrushka Potapov.” The appearance of the temple contained obvious elements of Dutch architecture, and most likely Potapov was not a genius architect, but the author of lace white stone carvings.

The temple had a symmetrical composition. The main quadrangle was covered with a dome with a central light drum. The other four drums were located at the corners of the quadrangle between the high pediments that completed the walls. On the eastern and western sides of the temple, two octagons were placed symmetrically, also ending with light drums. On the same axis with the temple (possibly using earlier structures), a three-tier bell tower was built, ending with five hipped towers and connected to the main volume by a covered passage. On three sides of the church, at the level of the second tier, a walkway was built on the arcades. There were two staircases leading up to the walkway, located on the northern and southern sides of the bell tower.

The temple was luxuriously decorated in the “Naryshkin Baroque” style and was one of the brightest examples of this style. It rightfully stands among the most significant works of Moscow architecture of the late 17th century.
The picturesque expressiveness and dynamics of the architectural forms of the Church of the Assumption attracted the attention of F.-B. Rastrelli, and some architectural techniques were used by him during the construction of St. Andrew's Church in Kyiv (1747). The Warsaw Library preserves Rastrelli's own sketches of the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka. V.I. Bazhenov considered this temple one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow and put it on a par with St. Basil's Cathedral.

The earliest discovered plan of the church property dates back to 1757. The boundaries of the property were fully formed by this time. The drawing shows a part of the church surrounded by a fence, a small chapel attached to the church on the west side and an almshouse adjacent to it.
By 1781, a two-story stone almshouse was built on the site of the chapel, partially preserved at the base of the modern structure 5-6. During the fire of Moscow in 1812, the church and buildings on its property were slightly damaged.

There is no information in the archives about further radical reconstructions of the part of the clergy house facing Pokrovka, however, data from a field survey indicate that in the 20-30s years XIX century, part of the eastern wall of the building was rebuilt at the level of the second floor. This is evidenced by the homogeneous brickwork, in which marks of this time were found. Similar marks were found on the end wall of the building on the bricks used to line the middle window of the second floor. However, as a result of repeated changes in the original dimensions of the window openings, the masonry of this wall is heterogeneous. The filling of part of one of the earlier window openings with a fragment of a beam lintel indicates a completely different nature of the arrangement of the openings. The location and dimensions of the initial window openings are expected to be clarified at the subsequent stage of field surveys, when it becomes possible to completely remove the plaster layer along the building’s façade.

A lithograph by O. Kadol from 1825 depicts the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka with adjacent buildings. The clergy house is shown in a slightly different volumetric configuration with lancet windows on the main facade.
In 1874, the clergy house was expanded; a two-story wooden gallery adjoined it from the courtyard side. In 1893, the building housed a bakery with an oven. By this time, the house had been built to modern dimensions; a porch and a summer entrance to the bakery were added to it from the yard. The western wall of the bell tower was completely included in the volume of the house.
In 1936, the Church of the Assumption and the bell tower were dismantled. (The carved portal and a pair of platbands were moved to the territory of the Donskoy Monastery; part of the carving is exhibited in the Kolomenskoye museums; the foundations of the temple have also been preserved.) In the 1930-1950s, a stone extension was made to the eastern facade of the building. Since then, the volume of the building has not changed.

In 2004, excavation and general construction work began, carried out on an economical basis without control from restoration architects. A monolithic interfloor ceiling was installed on metal beams, cutting the arch of the bell tower portal; the 18th century transverse wall with an arched opening on the 1st floor was dismantled; the decor of the first tier of the bell tower, which was covered with cement plaster over a metal mesh, was not fixed; Work has begun to lower the floor level of the 1st floor. The work was carried out as part of an uncoordinated capital repair and redevelopment project.
The implemented roof configuration is of a forced nature, since roof trusses have already been ordered and installed. The initial project provided for the identification of a fragment of the bell tower in the roof structure with a separate hip ending.
After public intervention, work was stopped and research and restoration projects were carried out. Now in the clergy house there is a cafe “4 angels”, the restored facade of the bell tower faces the hall of the second floor, the decor of the porch faces the newly constructed staircase leading to the summer hall of the cafe.

Materials from a full-scale study of the monument

In the process of field surveys in 2004, the facades and interior of the building were partially examined, uncovered in connection with the reconstruction of the wall that had begun.
Dismantling the wooden extension and the later staircase to the second floor from the side of the courtyard facade made it possible to reveal a fragment of the retaining wall and fence of the northern staircase on the walkway of the lost Church of the Assumption. Part of a 19th-century staircase adjoined the wall. with dolomite steps leading to the second floor of the house there was a clergy (later dismantled).

From the outer fencing of the church porch, the base of the intermediate pillar, decorated with two flies, has been preserved; a fragment of the white stone profile of the lower part of the frame is also visible. Part of the staircase railing can be seen from the second floor; here, above the cornice, a fragment of a unique white stone carved decor has been preserved. The general nature of the carved decoration of the railing of the northern staircase can be judged from surviving photographs taken before the dismantling of the church in the 1930s.

Thus, in the interior of the clergy's house, fragments of two massive pillars that supported a dismantled cylindrical vault, and the western wall of the first tier of the bell tower with a portal and fragments of the arched end of the entrance survived.

At the level of the first floor on the southern wall of the bell tower, a fragment of a cut-down brick fly decor was discovered, which made it possible to get an idea of ​​the nature of the lower tier, mostly hidden by cement plaster (preserved in the sounding during restoration).
At the level of the second floor, fragments of a semicircular perspective arch lined with figured bricks were identified. On the sides of it, white stone inserts from cut down carved elements have been preserved; above the arch, intermediate and interfloor white stone cornices, cut down in places, have been preserved. The flies have been preserved on both pillars of the bell tower. The width of the northwestern pillar is in better preservation, despite the fact that part of the wall in this place was laid in Soviet times. In the center of the fly you can see a partially cut down carved decor of a rounded shape. The roller that bordered its perimeter has also been preserved.

At the corner of the northwestern pillar, a white stone profiled cornice and a fragment of the roller that framed the fly on the northern side of the pillar have been preserved in good condition. Built in the 1930s, the outer wall includes parts of the dismantled arched opening of the bell tower vestibule.
The identified fragments of decor generally do not correspond to the external design of the church, which can be seen in historical photographs. There are two versions of this discrepancy: either part of the bell tower of the church, which began construction in the 1650s, was included in the volume of the Church of the Assumption, or at the very beginning of the construction of the new temple there was a “change in the designer,” and at the same time in the performer of the work.

It is also necessary to add that the open fragment of the western facade was hidden behind the extensions a long time ago, and absolutely nothing was known about its architecture. Latest Research allow us to reconstruct the original appearance of the monument in its entirety.

Materials for the preliminary design of the restoration

And finally, a view of the upper part of the preserved tier of the bell tower after restoration.

The Moscow Patriarchate is forming a list of churches located in the city center and demolished in the 1930s, “which are possible and advisable to restore.” This became known after the publication on the website of the deanery of the Epiphany District of Moscow of a circular letter sent to the dean of the Central Vicariate.

The letter, signed by the head of the office of the secretariat of the Central Vicariate of Moscow, Archpriest Alexei Muraveinik, states that the order to prepare this list was given by the first vicar of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', manager of the Central Vicariate of Moscow, Metropolitan Arseny of Istra.

“I hereby inform you that His Eminence Arseny, Metropolitan of Istra, First Vicar of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', Administrator of the Central Vicariate of Moscow, has given his blessing to prepare proposals for the restoration of destroyed churches, which are possible and advisable to restore on the territory of the church district entrusted to your care.”, the letter says.

The document also contains the deadlines for the execution of the order: “The necessary information should be sent by report to the email address of the vicariate office no later than June 20 this year. G."

The website "Keepers of the Heritage", citing unnamed sources in church circles, reports that it is possible that the start of a program for the restoration of lost churches in the center of Moscow could be announced as early as the fall of this year, for example, on National Unity Day on November 4 - subject to the approval of the necessary formalities with all interested parties.

The message notes that priority will be given to those churches that were located on undeveloped areas. In addition, restoration projects must be technically realistic. The absence of city construction obligations on a particular site will also be important.

Returns from oblivion. Which Moscow churches can be restored?

In February 2017, it was reported that the Ministry of Culture discussed the issue of recreating five ancient churches in Moscow that were completely destroyed in the last century.

Among these temples were the Assumption Cathedral on Pokrovka, on the site of which there is now a public garden, the Church of St. Nicholas on Ilyinka, the Church of Frol and Lavra on Myasnitskaya, the Church of the Praise of the Virgin Mary next to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Church of the Resurrection of the Word on Ostozhenka.

Most likely to be recreated are Church of the Resurrection on Ostozhenka. The project for its revival was developed several years ago and received the support of Patriarch Kirill. The Conception Monastery is actively involved in this process, since the Church of the Resurrection of the Word was the assigned church of worship of the monastery.

The church was closed in 1933. The decision to demolish it was made in connection with the construction of the first metro line. At Ostozhenka, the construction was carried out in an open way, and this became the reason for the demolition of the church building, which, as they said then, was “heavy”, and the metro tunnel could not withstand the load. The church was demolished in January-February 1935.

In the Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchusev contains photographs in which you can see the Church of the Resurrection of the Word in last days of its existence.

Photo: Kotov A.B. (CC by-sa 3.0) The most significant event in terms of recreating the architectural appearance of the capital may be the restoration Assumption Cathedral on Pokrovka.

The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Pokrovka was called the eighth wonder of the world. This church was a symbol of Moscow, it was F.M.’s favorite church. Dostoevsky. According to legend, the famous Soviet architect A.V. Shchusev decided to choose this profession after he saw the temple on Pokrovka.

A well-known fact has been preserved in history: when Napoleon ordered Moscow to be set on fire, he ordered the church on Pokrovka to be protected from fire, calling it the Russian Notre Dame.

The Assumption Cathedral was the last of those built in the 17th century and the tallest building on the street.

The temple was dismantled in 1936. Many years after the demolition, it turned out that the temple and the house, which was attached to the cathedral in the 19th century, have one common wall. Today the building houses a restaurant. During reconstruction, brickwork and fragments of carved white stone decor from the demolished bell tower were discovered here.

Church of St. Nicholas on Ilyinka, also known as "Nikola Grand Cross", was built at the end of the 17th century and demolished in 1934. Its main altar was consecrated in the name of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the chapel - in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The temple was a masterpiece of the Stroganov Baroque, one of the most beautiful churches in Moscow.

This Moscow church served as a kind of patronal temple for workers of the orders, and later of the courts. In the temple, people involved in litigation were brought to the “kissing of the cross” - the oath.

Church of the Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bashmaki first mentioned in 1475. It was located on Volkhonka, on Alekseevsky Hill, and is notable for being the only Moscow church in honor of the Feast of the Praise of the Virgin Mary.

Next to the church, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was later built. The church was destroyed in 1932 during the clearing of the construction site for the construction of the Palace of the Soviets.

The situation with the reconstruction of this temple is complicated by its location in one of the most attractive areas of Moscow for development. Now, in the immediate vicinity of the place where the Church of Praise was previously located, construction of an elite hotel with an area of ​​​​about 19 thousand square meters is underway. meters.

Until recently, recovery seemed most realistic Church of St. Martyrs Florus and Laurus at the Myasnitsky Gate. The church was built no later than the 15th century and was located on Myasnitskaya Street opposite the modern Post Office building - where there is now an asphalt parking lot near Yushkov Lane (now Bobrov Lane).

A number of documents were devoted to the reconstruction of the Temple of Florus and Laurel: a decree of the Moscow government, a decision of the Scientific and Methodological Council of the Moscow Heritage Committee, a resolution of the Public Urban Planning Council under the Mayor of Moscow, a protocol of the Regulatory Council of the Moscow Committee for Architecture. The reconstruction project received the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II (1921-2008).

However, after the artistic director of the Moscow theater “Et cetera” Alexander Kalyagin addressed the mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, the situation changed. A. Kalyagin opposed the reconstruction of the temple.

“The idea of ​​recreating the temple of the holy martyrs Florus and Laurus within its historical boundaries is absurd”; “It’s complete absurdity for a theatre, a trading house and a church to stand on the same spot”; “There is an element of blasphemy in this: a funeral service is being held for the deceased in the church, and at the same time a comedy is being played in the theater very close by. On the other hand, the ringing of the bells of a church located two meters from the theater will certainly disturb the audience,” this was the argument used by the theater director.

As a result, they abandoned the reconstruction of the temple, and in its place the construction of new buildings for the “Et cetera” theater began.

In total, in the 20th century in Moscow, according to historians, 369 churches were completely destroyed.

Since ancient times, boilermakers lived in this area (the corner of Pokrovka Street and Potapovsky Lane), who made cauldrons, cauldrons and metal utensils in general. In 1652-1656. The three-altar Assumption Church was built here. Forty years later, it was decided to build a new one, unprecedented in beauty and size. The lower church was consecrated in 1697 in the name of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow. The Upper Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was completed in the early years of the 18th century.

The slender, unusual, richly decorated church on Pokrovka amazed contemporaries with its beauty. Moscow historian I.M. Snegirev wrote in 1857: “The majestic and magnificent, one-of-a-kind Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God on Pokrovka is a decoration not only of Pokrovskaya Street, but also of our ancient capital. It constantly attracted the attention of lovers and experts of temple architecture, compatriots and foreigners. The once famous architect and academician Bazhenov, highly appreciating the merits of this sacred building, gave it advantages over other Moscow churches.”

In 1857, the icons in the church were renewed, the walls were decorated with paintings by G. Kozlov, the carving and gilding of the iconostases were renewed, and marble soles were made instead of wood. The Upper Assumption Church had an ancient, seven-tiered, baroque, wooden iconostasis. In the altar above the high place, two angels made of white marble held a crown. The temple had a unique bell tower topped with small decorative tents.

In the summer of 1935, the Moscow City Council decided to demolish the Assumption Church. A few months later, they began dismantling this architectural masterpiece. A small park was built in its place.

Mikhail Vostryshev "Orthodox Moscow. All churches and chapels."http://rutlib.com/book/21735/p/17

The twelve-domed church was built in 1696-99 by the merchant Sverchkov, who lived in the ancient chambers that have survived to this day. Between the chambers and the temple there was a garden with a pond (in its place there is now a school building); an open main staircase led from the garden to the temple. The second similar porch was facing Pokrovka. Rastrelli admired the Assumption Church, Bazhenov put it on a par with St. Basil's Cathedral. The church was so good that, according to legend, even Napoleon, who ordered the entire Kremlin to be blown up, posted special guards near it. Dmitry Likhachev recalled that as a child, when he first saw the Assumption, he was so shocked that he immediately thought about a career as an academician. And even officials of the Leninist government could not remain indifferent, renaming one of the neighboring lanes after the builder of the temple, Petrushka Potapov, and the other after the customer Sverchkov.

However, in 1935, the Moscow City Council decided to demolish it, and in 1936, the pearl of architecture was destroyed under the pretext of widening the sidewalk; only two carved platbands and a portal survived, evacuated to the territory of the Donskoy Monastery. The iconostasis of the temple was transported to the refectory of the Novodevichy Convent; several icons are kept in the State Historical Museum. And the clergyman’s house remained standing on the edge of a vacant lot, now occupied by the summer cafe “Achuchuk”. Local historian Pyotr Palamarchuk in his book “Forty Forties” reported that fragments of the western wall of the temple were preserved as part of a neighboring house, but the degree of their preservation was unknown.

Last year, a project to convert the house into an entertainment venue was submitted to the Public Council under the Main Directorate for the Protection of Monuments. The project involved a complete reconstruction of the building, with the expansion and addition of a glass attic. However, the Council agreed that, firstly, changing the dimensions of the house would deprive our descendants of the opportunity to recreate the temple, and secondly, the house was built in the mid-18th century and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to explore it first.

Since then, the business has died down, but the new owners did not waste time. Without waiting for approval, they slowly gutted the house from the inside, quietly removing all the internal walls and ceilings through the back door. At the same time, secret reenactors dismantled the plywood extension on the back side of the house, and unwittingly revealed to the world one of the most incredible local history discoveries of our time. From under the late cladding emerged a perfectly preserved wall of the front porch of the Church of the Assumption, as well as fragments of the lower tier of the bell tower (inside the house). Similar finds have already happened - for example, on Arbat you can see the masonry of the wall of the Church of St. Nicholas the Revealed, included in a Soviet-era brick fence. But there these are only a few ancient bricks, while in this case the external decor is perfectly preserved - brick flies and carved white stone rods. The bottom of the bell tower has survived to the height of two floors; it is decorated with a faceted portal and flanking semi-columns with capitals. All this is especially interesting because the architecture of this particular part of the temple remained a “blank spot” - even in the earliest images it was already hidden behind the extensions. Now the Center for Archaeological Research is designing the museumification of the foundations of the temple, and the Department for the Protection of Monuments is urgently placing the monument under state protection.

The article was prepared and written by Alexander Mozhaev. http://moskva.kotoroy.net/histories/38.html

The wooden temple has been known since 1511. He gave names to the adjacent Bolshoy and Maly Uspensky lanes (now Potapovsky and Sverchkov lanes). And in 1656 the Kotelniks rebuilt the Assumption Church in stone.

In 1696-1699, at the expense of the Moscow merchant I.M. Sverchkova Peter Potapov built a new single-domed church in the Moscow Baroque style. The temple was placed on a high basement and surrounded by an open gallery-porch on an arcade. At the corners of the quadrangle there were 4 additional small domes. The church building was decorated with white stone decor: ridges, bunches of corner columns, frames of windows and doorways with figured finials, decorative balconies.

Vasily Bazhenov considered the Assumption Church one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow and a “brightly national” creation on a par with the temple.

He admired the Assumption Church on Pokrovka and V.V. Rastrelli. She inspired him to create the Smolny Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Even Napoleon was amazed by the beauty of the Assumption Church and ordered his soldiers to protect it from fire and looters. Therefore, the temple was not damaged in 1812.

This was Fyodor Dostoevsky's favorite Moscow church. He showed it to his wife, and when he was in Moscow alone, he went to Pokrovka to pray in the Assumption Church and admire it.

In my youth, I first came to Moscow, and accidentally came across the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka. I didn't know anything about her before. Meeting her stunned me. A frozen cloud of white and red lace rose in front of me. There were no “architectural masses.” Her lightness was such that she all seemed to be the embodiment of an unknown idea, a dream of something unheard of beautiful. It cannot be imagined from surviving photographs and drawings; it had to be seen surrounded by low, ordinary buildings. I lived under the impression of this meeting and later began to study ancient Russian culture precisely under the influence of the impetus I received then.

On the initiative of the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, in 1922 Bolshoi Uspensky Lane was renamed Potapovsky in honor of the serf who built the Assumption Church.

At the same time, Maly Uspensky was renamed Sverchkov in honor of the merchant Ivan Sverchkov, who allocated funds for construction. And on November 28, 1935, the Moscow Council decided to close the Church of the Assumption on Pokrovka and demolish the building.
Restoration architects led by P.D. The Baranovskys tried to protect the church, but they were only allowed to take measurements and take samples of carved white stone parts. In the winter of 1936, the Assumption Church was demolished.

Now, as part of the “My Street” improvement program, the foundations of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Pokrovka are being turned into a museum.