TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

Temple architecture occupies an exceptional place in architecture. Based on the same principles and methods of construction, church buildings are strikingly different from civil buildings.

Even the most the best samples secular buildings - luxurious palaces, cannot compete in beauty and grandeur with grandiose temples, which in any culture were considered the apogee of the development of building art.

One cannot but agree with this, admiring the architecture of, for example, the majestic St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg or the almost fabulous St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. The best aspirations of the human spirit are embodied in temple architecture.

Many temples, due to their beauty, grace and monumentality, are not only the main sights of cities, but can also claim to be their historical symbol. For example, the ancient Russian city of Vladimir is inconceivable without the Assumption Cathedral, and Sergiev Posad near Moscow - without the temple complex of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra.

The architecture of the temple does not express the usual desire to organize a residential and comfortable space (which we see in civil architecture), but an attempt by a person to express his path to God through monumental architecture. Temple construction is saturated with symbolism, as an expression of that faith that inspires a person to dedicate his best creation to his Creator.

Temples in Rus' were built in different styles: from wooden architecture to the majestic Empire style. But an invariable feature of Orthodox churches is its symbolic correspondence to the Orthodox faith. In architecture, this was expressed in the form of church buildings, which, as a rule, at the base of the foundation have either a Cross as a symbol of salvation, or a circle as a symbol of eternity, or resemble a ship as an ancient symbol of the Church, saving her children in a raging sea of ​​worldly passions.

Church architecture is an integral part of Russian culture. However, remarkable examples of temple architecture are presented not only in Russia. For example, Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has temples of amazing beauty: this is the majestic St. Alexander Church in Paris, which Russian writers abroad loved to visit, and the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Munich, which is strict in its brevity, and the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville.

The temple differs from secular buildings not only in rich symbolism and elegance of architectural forms, a church building is, first of all, a place where the soul meets God, a place of a special state of mind - prayer. Visiting the temple not only on native land, but also being on tourist trips abroad, you join the richest spiritual culture of Orthodoxy.

Temple architecture, of course, is a special area of ​​architecture, in which there is an invisible soul of the masters who decorate the temple inside. At all times, the most important stage in the construction of temples was the internal wall and ceiling painting. The subtle artistic taste of the fresco masters, multiplied by a reverent attitude to the theme of the work, eventually created real masterpieces. church painting, which to this day serve as the standard of human spirituality and self-awareness.

FORMATION OF TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

The Lord, who created man from the dust of the earth, gave him the opportunity to know Himself in the entire universe surrounding man. According to the words of the Apostle Paul, “His invisible things, His eternal power and Divinity… are visible through looking at the creatures” (Rom. 1:20). The wise Creator introduces man into the world He created as into a beautiful temple, in which “everything that breathes glorifies the Lord” (Ps. 150:6).
In the pagan sense, the temple was in the narrow sense the dwelling of some "deity". This manifested the limitations of paganism, which did not comprehend that God, being above all material things, simultaneously abides in the whole world.

Christianity, which became the dominant worldview in the Byzantine Empire from the 4th century, did not follow the path of destroying the architectural achievements of antiquity: the Church only processed the experience accumulated over the centuries in the light of Christ's Truth. Christianity was preached as far as possible without violating the established local traditions and way of life. The first buildings in which prayer meetings and services of ancient Christians took place after gaining freedom of religion were basilicas.

The basilica is a typically Roman type of building. These structures were erected in the centers of public life of ancient cities and were places of its concentration. Here decisions of the city authorities were announced, legal proceedings were carried out, exchange operations were carried out, trade deals were concluded, business meetings were arranged. The fact that Christian services were transferred to buildings with these functions suggests that the Church, after being legalized on a national scale, is entering the very center of public life. Ancient Christians began to prefer the basilica also because buildings of this type were never used for pagan ritual purposes.

The layout of the basilica is fully consistent with the rank of Christian worship: the interior of the building is usually divided by two rows of columns into three parts (naves); the western apse, unlike similar structures of pre-Christian times, is usually absent, and a transverse nave (transept) is attached to the eastern apse to expand the chancel; the central nave is much higher and wider than the lateral ones, in addition, it has additional lighting due to two rows of windows in the upper part. The right nave is reserved for men, the left for women, as required by the ancient charter of the Church; the bishop is given a central position, and in pre-Christian times the same position was usually occupied by a judge. These observations point to the social structure of the Church. In contrast to the pagan understanding of the temple as the house of the "deity", the Christian temple is a place of worship, "domus ecclesia" - the house of the Church as an organization of believers. Of great importance is the interior decoration of a Christian church: the walls protect believers from outside world, revealing the spiritual world through frescoes and mosaic images, and all attention is directed to the holy altar, where the Sacrament of the Eucharist is performed. In the 4th century, the construction of basilica churches took place mainly in the East.

Along with basilicas, an important place in ancient Christian architecture was occupied by structures of the centric type: mausoleums, baptisteries, and temples. The ancient Christian mausoleums were a direct continuation and development under new conditions of the architecture of late antique mausoleums of the beginning of the 4th century. The upper volume of these structures was initially divided by deep niches, and later by windows, due to which a new architectural element appeared - a light drum, which served as the supporting basis for the dome.

From the first centuries of its existence, the Church of Christ established the custom of celebrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the places of suffering of the holy martyrs. In the III-IV centuries, over the burial places of the holy martyrs, Christians began to build temples (martyriums), outwardly resembling ancient mausoleums; at the same time, there was a tendency to turn the burial structures of pre-Christian times into Christian churches.

At the same time, the formation of the architecture of the temples of the cross-centric type took place. The earliest of the buildings of this kind is the temple of San Lorenzo, which has survived to this day, built in the 70s of the 4th century in Milan. This building is square in plan, on each side of which semicircular apses are attached, which gives it a peculiar shape of a cross. Although some architectural analogies can be traced in some buildings of the late Roman period (for example, separate rooms of palace complexes and baths), one cannot help but see in the appearance of this type of temples the desire of Christian architects to visibly glorify the Honest and Life-Giving Cross of Christ - an instrument of human salvation and a symbol of eternal victory over death and the devil.

The idea of ​​a Christian church as a reflection of the Kingdom of God, where everything comes from Christ and returns to Christ, was subsequently fully embodied in the unsurpassed masterpiece of the 6th century - the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which became the basis for the formation of the Christian architectural canon for many centuries. The achievement of this ideal was preceded by many years of creative search by church architects, evidence of which is centric churches, in which the main idea of ​​the Cross of the Lord is clearly visible as the center and foundation of the entire Christian worldview.

Middle Ages and temple architecture

The life of a medieval person is closely connected with the earth. The aesthetic moment is widely developed in its culture. This type of person is self-sufficient, whole. In the heroic epic, in epics, we have before us strong natures, in which the word does not disagree with the deed, they are direct, sincere; with what more people has power, the more he bears responsibility. The culture of the Middle Ages is not based on the individual. People live by the norms intended for the whole team. Freedom is a negative category, it is understood as willfulness. These features of thinking were reflected in architecture, primarily temple architecture.

In the Russian Middle Ages, processes are taking place that are in many respects similar to European ones. In Europe, the Middle Ages begins with the destruction of the monuments of Antiquity - in Rus', pagan art is anathematized. The Latin language remains the language of worship in the Catholic Church - Orthodox worship is conducted in Church Slavonic (a modified Old Church Slavonic) language (this is important, since the cultural values ​​of previous eras are available primarily to people close to the church). Christianity is gradually becoming the dominant ideology, and both in Europe and in Russia, this process goes from south to north.

It is not purely our national feature that the Russian art of the Middle Ages was formed in the clash of two ways - patriarchal and feudal, and two religions - paganism and Christianity. The same thing is happening in Europe: dual faith, especially in the north and west, the gradual transition of pagan deities into the category of lower, demonic ones (and in our country, the functions of the old gods were often attributed to the saints).

The Russian Middle Ages begins with the christening of Rus'. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this event. Together with Christianity, Rus' adopted certain foundations of culture from Byzantium. In particular, stone architecture began to meet the new state and ideological tasks, samples of which were taken from Byzantium. A type of cross-domed church was created there, the basis of which is a rectangular room with four or more pillars in the middle, dividing the interior into nine parts. The center of the temple is the domed space, where light enters through the windows in the drum. Cells covered with cylindrical vaults adjoin the domed space, forming a cruciform basis of the plan. The corner parts are covered with domes or barrel vaults. The entire central space in the plan forms a cross. The dome appears in Byzantium in the Justinian period, even before the cross dome (Sophia of Constantinople).

In the same place, a dome system on sails is formed. Three faceted or semicircular apses adjoin the building on the eastern side. An altar is placed in the middle. In the western part there is a room of the second tier - the choirs. The transverse space in the western part is called the vestibule, the narthex.

However, relying on the traditions of Byzantine art, Russian masters created their own national art, their own forms of temples, wall paintings and iconography, which cannot be confused with Byzantine, despite the common iconography.

The end of persecution in the 4th century and the adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire as the state religion led to a new stage in the development of temple architecture. The external, and then the spiritual division of the Roman Empire into Western - Roman and Eastern - Byzantine, also influenced the development of church art. In the Western Church, the basilica is the most widespread.

In the Eastern Church in the V-VIII centuries. the Byzantine style was formed in the construction of temples and in all church art and worship. Here were laid the foundations of the spiritual and external life of the Church, since then called Orthodox.

Types of Orthodox churches

Temples in the Orthodox Church were built by several types, but each temple symbolically corresponded to church dogma.

1. Temples in the form cross were built as a sign that the Cross of Christ is the foundation of the Church, by the Cross mankind is delivered from the power of the devil, by the Cross the entrance to Paradise lost by the forefathers is opened.

2. Temples in shape circle(a circle that has neither beginning nor end, symbolizes eternity) speak of the infinity of the existence of the Church, its indestructibility in the world according to the word of Christ

3. Temples in shape eight-pointed star symbolize the star of Bethlehem, which led the Magi to the place where Christ was born. Thus, the Church of God testifies to its role as a guide to the life of the Age to Come. The period of the earthly history of mankind was calculated in seven large periods - centuries, and the eighth is eternity in the Kingdom of God, the life of the future age.

4. Temple in shape ship. Ship-shaped temples are the most ancient type of temples, figuratively expressing the idea that the Church, like a ship, saves believers from the disastrous waves of worldly navigation and leads them to the Kingdom of God.

5. Temples of mixed types : cruciform in appearance, and inside, in the center of the cross, round, or rectangular in external shape, and inside, in the middle part, round.

The scheme of the temple in the form of a circle

The scheme of the temple in the form of a ship

Cruciform type. Church of the Ascension beyond the Serpukhov Gates. Moscow

The scheme of the temple built in the shape of a cross

Cruciform type. Church of Barbara on Varvarka. Moscow.

Cruciform shape. Temple of Nicholas the Wonderworker

Rotunda. Smolensk Church of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra

The scheme of the temple in the form of a circle

Rotunda. Church of Metropolitan Peter Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery

Rotunda. Church of All Who Sorrow at Ordynka. Moscow

Temple diagrams in the form of an eight-pointed star

Ship type. Church of Dmitry on the Blood in Uglich

The scheme of the temple in the form of a ship

Ship type. Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills. Moscow

Byzantine temple architecture

In the Eastern Church in the V-VIII centuries. formed Byzantine style in the construction of temples and in all church art and worship. Here were laid the foundations of the spiritual and external life of the Church, since then called Orthodox.

Temples in the Orthodox Church were built in different ways, but each temple symbolically corresponded to the church doctrine. In all types of temples, the altar was certainly separated from the rest of the temple; temples continued to be two - and more often three-part. The dominant in Byzantine temple architecture remained a rectangular temple with a rounded ledge of altar apses extended to the east, with a figured roof, with a vaulted ceiling inside, which was supported by a system of arches with columns, or pillars, with a high domed space, which resembles interior view temple in the catacombs.

Only in the middle of the dome, where there was a source of natural light in the catacombs, they began to depict the True Light that came into the world - the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the similarity of Byzantine churches with the catacombs is only the most general, since the ground churches of the Orthodox Church are distinguished by incomparable splendor and greater external and internal detail.

Sometimes they rise several spherical domes topped with crosses. An Orthodox church is certainly crowned with a cross on the dome or on all domes, if there are several of them, as a sign of victory and as evidence that the Church, like all creation, chosen for salvation, enters the Kingdom of God thanks to the Redemptive Feat of Christ the Savior. By the time of the Baptism of Rus' in Byzantium, a type of cross-domed church was taking shape, which combined in a synthesis the achievements of all previous directions in the development of Orthodox architecture.

Byzantine temple

Byzantine church plan

Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice

Byzantine temple

Cross-domed church in Istanbul

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Italy

Byzantine church plan

Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice

Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul)

The interior of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople

Church of the Holy Mother of God (Desyatinnaya). Kyiv

Cross-domed churches of Ancient Rus'

The architectural type of a Christian temple, formed in Byzantium and in the countries of the Christian East in the 5th-8th centuries. It became dominant in the architecture of Byzantium from the 9th century and was adopted by the Christian countries of the Orthodox confession as the main form of the temple. Such well-known Russian churches as: Kiev Sophia Cathedral, Sophia of Novgorod, Vladimir Assumption Cathedral were deliberately built in the likeness of Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople.

Old Russian architecture is mainly represented by church buildings, among which cross-domed churches occupy a dominant position. In Rus', not all variants of this type became widespread, but buildings different periods and various cities and principalities Ancient Rus' form their own original interpretations of the cross-domed church.

The architectural design of the cross-domed church is devoid of the easily visible visibility that was characteristic of basilicas. Such architecture contributed to the transformation of consciousness ancient Russian man, elevating it to an in-depth contemplation of the universe.

While preserving the general and basic architectural features of Byzantine churches, Russian churches have a lot of originality and originality. In Orthodox Russia, several original architectural styles have developed. Among them, first of all, the style that stands closest to the Byzantine stands out. This Toclassical type of white stone rectangular church , or even basically square, but with the addition of an altar part with semicircular apses, with one or more domes on a figured roof. The spherical Byzantine form of dome cover was replaced by a helmet-shaped one.

In the middle part of small temples there are four pillars that support the roof and symbolize the four evangelists, the four cardinal points. In the central part of the cathedral church there may be twelve or more pillars. At the same time, the pillars intersecting between them form the signs of the Cross and help to divide the temple into its symbolic parts.

The Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir and his successor, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, sought to organically incorporate Rus' into the universal organism of Christianity. The temples erected by them served this purpose, placing believers before the perfect Sophian image of the Church. Already the first Russian churches testify spiritually to the connection between earth and heaven in Christ, to the God-human nature of the Church.

Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir

Cross-domed church of John the Baptist. Kerch. 10th century

Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir

Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin

Church of the Transfiguration in Veliky Novgorod

Russian wooden architecture

In the 15th-17th centuries, a significantly different style of temple construction from the Byzantine one developed in Russia.

Oblong rectangular ones appear, but certainly with semicircular apses to the east, one-story and two-story with winter and summer churches temples, sometimes white stone, more often brick with covered porches and covered arched galleries - ambush around all the walls, with a gable, four-slope and figured roof, on which one or more highly raised domes in the form of domes, or bulbs, flaunt.

The walls of the temple are decorated with elegant decoration and windows with beautiful carvings made of stone or with tiled platbands. Next to the temple or together with the temple above its narthex, a high hipped bell tower with a cross at the top is erected.

Russian wooden architecture acquired a special style. The properties of wood as a building material determined the features of this style. It is difficult to create smooth forms of a dome from rectangular boards and beams. Therefore, in wooden temples, instead of it, there is a pointed tent. Moreover, the church as a whole began to give the appearance of a tent. This is how wooden temples appeared to the world in the form of a huge pointed wooden cone. Sometimes the roof of the temple was arranged in the form of a set of conically ascending wooden domes with crosses (for example, famous temple on the Kizhi churchyard).

Church of the Intercession (1764) O. Kizhi.

Assumption Cathedral in Kem. 1711

Church of St. Nicholas. Moscow

Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord (1714) Kizhi Island

Chapel in honor of the Three Saints. Kizhi Island.

Stone hipped churches

The forms of wooden temples influenced stone (brick) construction.

They began to build intricate stone hipped churches, resembling huge towers (pillars). The Pokrovsky Cathedral in Moscow, better known as St. Basil's Cathedral, is rightfully considered the highest achievement of stone tent architecture, a complex, intricate, multi-decorated building of the 16th century.

At the heart of the plan, the cathedral is cruciform. The cross consists of four main churches, located around the middle, fifth. The middle church is square, the four side churches are octagonal. The cathedral has nine temples in the form of cone-shaped pillars, which together make up one huge colorful tent in general outline.

Tents in Russian architecture did not last long: in the middle of the 17th century. the church authorities forbade the construction of tent churches, since they differed sharply from the traditional one-domed and five-domed rectangular (ship) churches.

Hip architecture of the 16th-17th centuries, originating in traditional Russian wooden architecture, is a unique direction of Russian architecture, which has no analogues in the art of other countries and peoples.

Stone hipped church of the Resurrection of Christ in the village of Gorodnya.

St Basil's Church

Temple "Satisfy my sorrows". Saratov

Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye

The architecture of temples has a very rich and ambiguous history, which, however, shows that it was with the construction of temples that all architectural innovations, all new styles and trends all over the world began and spread. The majestic religious buildings of the great civilizations of the ancient world have survived to this day. And also there were many modern examples of amazing architecture of religious buildings.

Hallgrimskirkja. The Lutheran Church in Reykjavik is the fourth tallest building in Iceland. The project of the church was developed in 1937 by the architect Gudjoun Samuelson. It took 38 years to build the church. The church is located in the center of Reykjavik, and is visible from any part of the city. It has become one of the main attractions of the city, and is also used as a lookout tower.

Cathedral of Las Lajas. One of the most visited temples in Colombia. The construction of the temple was completed in 1948. The neo-gothic cathedral was built directly on a 30-meter arched bridge connecting the two sides of a deep gorge. The church is cared for by two Franciscan communities, one Colombian and the other Ecuadorian. Thus, the Cathedral of Las Lajas became the key to peace and union between the two South American peoples.

Notre Dame du Haut. Concrete pilgrimage church, built in 1950-55. in the French city of Ronchamp. The architect Le Corbusier, not being religious, agreed to take on the project on the condition that the Catholic Church would give him complete freedom of creative expression. Initially, the non-standard building caused violent protests local residents, who refused to supply water and electricity to the temple, but by now the tourists who come to see it have become one of the main sources of income for the Ronshans.

Jubilee Church. Or the Church of the Merciful God the Father is a community center in Rome. It was built by architect Richard Meyer between 1996 and 2003 to revitalize the lives of the area's residents. The temple was built of prefabricated concrete on a triangular platform on the border of the city park, surrounded by 10-story residential and public buildings with a population of about 30,000 inhabitants.

St. Basil's Cathedral. The Orthodox church is located on Red Square in Moscow. A well-known monument of Russian architecture and one of the most famous sights of Russia. It was built in 1555-1561 by order of Ivan the Terrible in memory of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. According to legend, the architects of the cathedral were blinded by order of Ivan the Terrible so that they could no longer build a similar temple.

The Stave Church in Borgunn. One of the oldest surviving frame churches is located in Norway. Metal parts were not used in the construction of the Borgund Stave Church. And the number of parts that make up the church exceeds 2 thousand. The strong frame of the racks was assembled on the ground and then raised to a vertical position with the help of long poles. The Stave Church in Borgunn was built presumably in 1150-80.

The cathedral is a small basilica of the Glorious Mother of God. This is the highest in Latin America Catholic cathedral. Its height is 114 m + 10 m cross on top. The shape of the cathedral was created under the impression of Soviet satellites. The initial project of the cathedral was proposed by Don Jaime Luis Coelho, and the architect José Augusto Bellucci designed the cathedral. The cathedral was built between July 1959 and May 1972.

Church of St. George

The cave church, entirely carved into the rocks, is located in the Ethiopian city of Lalibela. The building is a cross 25 by 25 meters and goes underground for the same amount. This miracle was created in the 13th century by order of the king of Lalibela according to legend for 24 years. In total, there are 11 temples in Lalibela, completely carved into the rocks and connected by tunnels.

Cathedral of Our Lady in Tears. The cathedral in the form of a concrete tent towers over the Italian city of Syracuse. In the middle of the last century, an elderly couple lived on the site of the cathedral, who had a statuette of the Madonna. Once the figurine began to “cry” with human tears, pilgrims from all over the world rushed to the city. In honor of her, a huge cathedral was built, perfectly visible from anywhere in the city.

US Air Force Academy Cadets Chapel. It is located in the state of Colorado on the territory of a military camp and a training base of a branch of the US Air Force Pilot Academy. The monumental profile of the building of the chapel is created by seventeen rows of steel frames, ending with peaks at a height of about fifty meters. The building is divided into three levels, and in its halls services are held for the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish denominations.

Crown of Thorns Chapel

The wooden chapel is located in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, USA. The chapel was built in 1980 by architect E. Fay Jones. There are a total of 425 windows in the light and spacious chapel building.

Church of consolation. Located in the Spanish city of Cordoba. A very young church was designed by the architectural bureau Vicens + Ramos last year according to all the rules of strict minimalist canons. The only deviation from strictly white color is a golden wall in place of the altar.

Arctic Cathedral. Lutheran church in the Norwegian city of Tromsø. As conceived by the architect, the exterior of the building, consisting of two merging triangular structures covered with aluminum plates, should evoke an association with an iceberg.

Painted church in the Arbor. Painted temples are the most famous architectural sights of Moldova. Churches are decorated with frescoes both outside and inside. Each of these temples is on the List world heritage UNESCO.

Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira

The Cathedral of Zipaquira in Colombia is carved into a solid salt rock. A dark tunnel leads to the altar. The height of the cathedral is 23 m, the capacity is over 10 thousand people. Historically, this place was a mine used by the Indians to obtain salt. When the need for this disappeared, a temple appeared on the site of the mine.

Church of Saint Joseph. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of St. Joseph in Chicago was built in 1956. Known in the world thanks to 13 golden domes, symbolizing the 12 apostles and Jesus Christ.

Farmer's Chapel. A concrete chapel at the edge of a field near the German town of Mechernich was built by local farmers in honor of their patron saint Bruder Claus.

Church of the Holy Family. Built on private donations since 1882, the church in Barcelona is Antonio Gaudí's famous project. The unusual appearance of the temple made it one of the main attractions of Barcelona. However, due to the difficulty of manufacturing stone structures, the cathedral will be completed no earlier than 2026.

Church of Paraportiani. The dazzling white church is located on the Greek island of Mykonos. The temple was built in the 15th-17th centuries and consists of five separate churches: four churches are built on the ground, and the fifth is based on these four.

Church of Grundtwig. Lutheran church located in Copenhagen, Denmark. Is one of the most famous churches city ​​and a rare example of a religious building built in the style of expressionism. The competition for the design of the future church was won in 1913 by the architect Peder Klint. Construction continued from 1921 to 1926.

Mosque in Tirana. The project of a cultural center in the Albanian capital Tirana, which will include a mosque, an Islamic cultural center and a Museum of Religious Accord. international competition The project was won last year by the Danish architectural firm BIG.

Mikhailovsky Golden-Domed Monastery. One of the oldest monasteries in Kyiv. It includes the Newly Built St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral, a refectory with the Church of St. John the Evangelist and a bell tower. It is assumed that St. Michael's Cathedral was the first temple with a gilded top, from where this peculiar tradition went in Rus'.

Beautiful architecture of churches and temples!

"Church of St. Prince Igor Chernigov in Peredelkino."

Church of the Transfiguration in Peredelkino

Nicholas the Wonderworker Mozhaisky

Shorin's country estate in the city of Gorokhovets, Vladimir Region. It was built in 1902. Now this house is a folk art center.

St. Vladimir's Cathedral.

The idea of ​​​​creating the Vladimir Cathedral in honor of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir belongs to Metropolitan Filaret Amfiteatrov. The work was entrusted to Alexander Beretti, the cathedral was laid on the day of St. Vladimir on July 15, 1862, in 1882 the construction was completed by architect Vladimir Nikolaev.

The glory of a monument of outstanding cultural significance, Vladimir Cathedral received mainly due to its unique paintings by prominent artists: V. M. Vasnetsov, M. A. Vrubel, M. V. Nesterov, P. A. Svedomsky and V. A. Kotarbinsky under the general supervision of the professor A. V. Prakhova. The main role in the creation of the temple painting belongs to V. M. Vasnetsov. The solemn consecration of the Vladimir Cathedral took place on August 20, 1896 in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

Novodevichy Convent.

Temple them. St. Cyril and St. Methodius"

Orthodox church in Byala Podlaska, Poland. It was built in the period 1985-1989.

The Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel (Archangel Cathedral) in the Kremlin was the tomb of the great princes and Russian tsars. In the old days it was called "St. Michael on the square. In all likelihood, the first wooden Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin arose on the site of the current one during the short reign of Alexander Nevsky's brother Mikhail Khorobrit in 1247-1248. According to legend, it was the second church in Moscow. Khorobrit himself, who died in 1248 in a skirmish with the Lithuanians, was buried in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. And the Moscow temple of the guardian of the heavenly gates of the Archangel Michael was destined to become the princely tomb of the Moscow princes. There is evidence that the nephew of Mikhail Khorobrit, the founder of the dynasty of Moscow princes Daniel, was buried near the southern wall of this cathedral. Daniil's son Yuri was buried in the same cathedral.
In 1333, another son of Daniel of Moscow, Ivan Kalita, built a new stone church according to his vow, in gratitude for delivering Rus' from hunger. The existing cathedral was built in 1505-1508. under the guidance of the Italian architect Aleviz the New on the site of the old cathedral of the XIV century and consecrated on November 8, 1508 by Metropolitan Simon.
The temple has five domes, six pillars, five apses, eight aisles with a narrow room separated from it by a wall in the western part (on the second tier there are choirs intended for women of the royal family). Built of brick, decorated with white stone. In the processing of the walls, the motives of the architecture of the Italian Renaissance are widely used (order pilasters with vegetable capitals, "shells" in zakomara, multi-profile cornices). Initially, the domes of the temple were covered with black-glazed tiles, the walls were probably painted red, and the details were white. The interior contains murals from 1652-66 (Fyodor Zubov, Yakov Kazanets, Stepan Ryazanets, Joseph Vladimirov and others; restored in 1953-55) , carved wooden gilded iconostasis of the XVII-XIX centuries. (height 13 m) with icons of the 15th-17th centuries, a chandelier of the 17th century.The cathedral contains frescoes from the 15th-16th centuries, as well as a wooden iconostasis with icons from the 17th-19th centuries. The murals of the 16th century were knocked down and painted again in 1652-1666 according to the old copybooks by the icon painters of the Armory (Yakov Kazanets, Stepan Ryazanets, Joseph Vladimirov).

"Orekhovo-Zuevo - Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary"

Palace of Alexei Mikhailovich in the village of Kolomenskoye

The ancient village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow stood out among other patrimonial possessions of Russian sovereigns - grand ducal and royal country residences were located here. The most famous among them is the wooden palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (reigned 1645-1676)
The son of the first tsar from the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich, Alexei Mikhailovich, having ascended the throne, repeatedly rebuilt and gradually expanded his father's residence near Moscow, which was associated with the growth of his family. He often visited Kolomenskoye, engaged in falconry in its vicinity and held official ceremonies here.
In the 1660s Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich conceived large-scale changes to the Kolomna residence. The solemn ceremony of laying the foundation of the new palace, which began with a prayer service, took place on May 2-3, 1667. The palace was built from wood according to the drawings, the work was carried out by an artel of carpenters under the leadership of the head of the archery Ivan Mikhailov and the carpenter's head Semyon Petrov. From the winter of 1667 to the spring of 1668, carvings were made, in 1668 the doors were upholstered and paints were prepared for painting the palace, and in the summer season of 1669 the main icon and painting works were completed. In the spring and summer of 1670 blacksmiths, carved iron craftsmen and locksmiths were already working in the palace. Having inspected the palace, the tsar ordered the addition of picturesque images, which was done in 1670-1671. The sovereign closely followed the progress of the work, during the entire construction he often came to Kolomenskoye and stayed there for a day. The final completion of the work took place in the autumn of 1673. In the winter of 1672/1673, the palace was consecrated by Patriarch Pitirim; At the ceremony, Hieromonk Simeon of Polotsk delivered a “Greeting” to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
The Kolomna Palace had an asymmetric layout and consisted of independent and different-sized cells, the size and design of which corresponded to the hierarchical traditions of the family way of life. The cages were connected by passages and passages. The complex was divided into two halves: the male part, which included the chambers of the tsar and the princes and the front entrance, and the female part, consisting of the chambers of the queen and the princesses. In total, the palace had 26 towers of different heights - from two to four floors. The main living quarters were the rooms on the second floor. In total, there were 270 chambers in the palace, which were illuminated by 3000 windows. When decorating the Kolomna Palace, for the first time in Russian wooden architecture, carved architraves and planking imitating stone were used. In the solution of facades and interiors, the principle of symmetry was actively applied.
As a result of large-scale work in Kolomenskoye, a complex complex was created that shook the imagination of both contemporaries and people of the “enlightened” 18th century. The palace was very decorative: the facades were decorated with intricate architraves, multi-color carved details, figured compositions and had an elegant look.
In 1672-1675. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his family regularly traveled to Kolomenskoye; diplomatic receptions were often held in the palace. The new sovereign Fedor Alekseevich (reigned 1676-1682) carried out the reconstruction of the palace. On May 8, 1681, the carpenter Semyon Dementiev, a peasant of the boyar P.V. Sheremetev, instead of a dilapidated trough, began the construction of a huge Dining Chamber. The final appearance of this building was then captured in various engravings and paintings.
All subsequent rulers of Russia fell in love with the Kolomna Palace. In 1682-1696. it was visited by Tsars Peter and Ivan, as well as Princess Sofya Alekseevna. Much more often than others, Peter and his mother, Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna, were here. Under Peter I, a new foundation was laid under the palace.
Throughout the XVIII century. The palace gradually decayed and collapsed despite all attempts to save it. In 1767, by decree of Empress Catherine II, the dismantling of the palace began, which continued until about 1770. During the dismantling, detailed plans for the palace were drawn up, which, together with the inventories of the 18th century. and visual materials give a fairly complete picture of this remarkable monument of Russian architecture of the 17th century.
Now the palace has been recreated in a new place according to old drawings and images.

Chapel of Alexander Nevsky

Chapel of Alexander Nevsky was built in 1892. architect Pozdeev N.I. It is distinguished by the perfection of brickwork and elegant decor. Yaroslavl.
St. Andrew's Cathedral - the current Orthodox Cathedral on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg, standing at the intersection of Bolshoy Prospekt and the 6th line, an architectural monument of the 18th century. In 1729, the laying of a wooden church built between 1729 and 1731 by the architect J. Trezzini took place. In 1744 St. Andrew's Church was renamed into a cathedral. In 1761, the wooden St. Andrew's Cathedral burned to the ground as a result of a lightning strike.

Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in the village of Nelazskoye. Built in 1696.

The Church of the All-Merciful Savior in Kuskovo is the former house church of the Sheremetev family, also known as the Church of the Origin of the Honest Trees of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. Currently, it is part of the architectural and artistic ensemble of the Kuskovo estate. For the first time, Kuskovo is mentioned in the annals of the 16th century and already as the possession of the Sheremetevs, whose family was one of the most noble in Russia. The first house wooden church has been known since 1624; the boyar court and the yards of serfs were also located here. Around the same time, in 1646, Fyodor Ivanovich Sheremetyev built a large tented Assumption Church in the neighboring village of Veshnyakovo. Western Europe. According to legend, the Pope gave him a golden cross with a particle of the Tree of the Life-Giving Cross. This shrine passed by will to his son, Count Pyotr Borisovich Sheremetyev. Pyotr Borisovich, having inherited the Kuskovo estate after the death of his father, decided to reconstruct it so that it could amaze everyone with luxury and wealth. Construction began in 1737 with the erection of a new church. The main and only throne of the church was consecrated in honor of the Origin of the Honest Trees of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. Since the time of construction, the church has not been rebuilt and has come down to our time in its original form. It is considered one of the rare architectural monuments of Moscow in the "Annensky Baroque" style, that is, the Baroque architectural style of the era of Anna Ioannovna].

In 1919 the estate received the status State Museum. The building of the church was converted into a museum ancillary premises. The Church of the All-Merciful Savior was restored and re-consecrated in 1991.

The Old Russian Resurrection Cathedral was built on the site of a former wooden church, as can be seen from the description of the city of Staraya Russa. The original foundation of this church dates back to a distant time. It was before the Swedish ruin of the city of Staraya Russa, which was in 1611-1617, and during the ruin it was left safe and sound. When and by whom it was built is not known, it is only known that after the destruction (1611) by the Swedes of the Boriso-Gleb Cathedral, built by Novgorod newcomers merchants in 1403 and located near the Peter and Paul Church, on the north side, it was instead of the cathedral. The wooden Cathedral Church of the Intercession, due to dilapidation, was dismantled and in its place, on the right bank of the Polist River and at the mouth of the Pererytitsa River, the church warden Moses Somrov built the current stone Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ with limits on the north side in the name of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, and on the south the name of the Nativity of John the Baptist. The construction of the cathedral began in 1692 and was completed in 1696. The aisles were consecrated to the reign of Peter the Great (Pokrovskaya on October 8, 1697. The Church of the Resurrection of Christ was consecrated on July 1, 1708).

The Church of the Intercession on the Nerl was built in 1165. Historical sources connect its construction with the victorious campaign of the Vladimir regiments against the Volga Bulgaria in 1164. In this campaign, the young prince Izyaslav died. In memory of these events, Andrei Bogolyubsky founded the Pokrovsky Church. According to some reports, the defeated Volga Bulgars themselves delivered the white stone for the construction of the church as an indemnity. The Church of the Intercession on the Nerl is a masterpiece of world architecture. She is called the "white swan" of Russian architecture, a beauty, compared with a bride. This small, elegant building was built on a small hill, on a riverside meadow, where the Nerl flows into the Klyazma. In all of Russian architecture, which has created so many unsurpassed masterpieces, there is probably no monument more lyrical. This amazingly harmonious white-stone temple, organically merging with the surrounding landscape, is called a poem imprinted in stone.

Kronstadt. Naval Cathedral.

Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The Cathedral Cathedral of Christ the Savior (Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ) in Moscow is the Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church near the Kremlin on the left bank of the Moskva River.
The original temple was erected in gratitude for the salvation of Russia from the Napoleonic invasion. It was designed by the architect Konstantin Ton. The construction lasted almost 44 years: the temple was founded on September 23, 1839, and consecrated on May 26, 1883.
On December 5, 1931, the temple building was destroyed. It was rebuilt on the same site in 1994-1997.

As if in contrast to the powerful volumes of the Resurrection Monastery, unknown masters created an elegantly proportioned, surprisingly well-proportioned church: an elegant hipped bell tower, a refectory, a central five-domed cube of the temple elongated upwards, small one-domed aisles from the north and south.

All photos and descriptions for them are taken from here http://fotki.yandex.ru/tag/%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%85%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA% D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0/?p=0&how=week

http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/gorodilowskaya-galya/view/707894/?page=12

Temple architecture of Moscow
Table of contents

Introduction

Church architecture is not at all the same as civil architecture. It carries the most important symbolic meanings, it has other functions, tasks, design features. A church building cannot be built solely on the basis of spatial and stylistic considerations. The history of civil architecture shows how a person organized the living space around him, church - how he thought for himself over the centuries the path to God. And yet, historically, temple architecture did not differ very much from secular architecture - except perhaps in an emphasized exterior, outward orientation; in general, it was within the framework of the architectural style prevailing in a particular era, and often determined its development.

Today's situation is fundamentally different. In the Soviet era, churches were not built here. As a result, new temples have to be built, overcoming a gap of more than 70 years. But even in civil architecture, we lagged behind the rest of the world for many years. We missed several architectural styles, others came to us late, others were changed beyond recognition. Moreover, if in ancient times architectural styles could dominate for centuries, today they replace each other every few years.

That is why the topic of this work is relevant and timely.

The purpose and objectives of the work is to study the temple architecture of Moscow.

1 History of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki

Initially, this place was the Church of the Great Martyr Nikita. In 1626 there was a fire here, the church, apparently, burned down, but the icon of the Great Martyr Nikita was saved. In the 1630s Yaroslavl merchant Grigory (George) Nikitnikov, who settled nearby, built a stone church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity with a chapel of Nikita the Great Martyr.

The aisles in this temple are dedicated to St. Nicholas, the Apostle John the Theologian, the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God. Georgian icon of the Mother of God in the 17th century. from Georgia through Persia came to Russia and became famous for miracles. In 1654, during the world plague, the icon was brought to Moscow, and the copy of the miraculous icon was placed in the Trinity Church in Nikitniki. It cannot be said that the royal icon painter Simon Ushakov contributed a lot to the decoration of the temple. He painted several icons for the iconostasis, one of them is the famous "Planting the Tree of the Russian State", which deserves special consideration. Wonderful paintings in the temple 1 .

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The middle and second half of the 17th century were marked by major achievements in the most various fields culture. In the fine arts, there is a struggle between two contradictory trends: a progressive one, associated with new phenomena in Russian artistic culture, which tried to go beyond the limits of a narrow ecclesiastical worldview, and an obsolete, conservative one, which fought against everything new and mainly against aspirations for secular forms in painting. Realistic searches in painting are the driving force behind the further development of Russian visual arts XVII century. The framework of ecclesiastical-feudal art with its narrowly dogmatic themes becomes too narrow, not satisfying either artists or customers. The rethinking of the human personality is formed under the influence of democratic strata, primarily the broad circles of the townspeople, and is reflected in literature and in painting. It is significant that the writers and artists of the 17th century began to depict in their works a real person their contemporary, ideas about which were based on keen observations of life.

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The process of "secularization" also begins in architecture. When building churches, the architects of the 17th century set off from the usual forms of civil chapel and chamber architecture, from folk wooden buildings. This inspired skilled builders and talented stone carvers, closely connected with the people and with the artisanal township environment.

In 1634, when the monument was completed, the area of ​​Kitay-gorod was just beginning to be built up with boyar and merchant estates and courtyards; small wooden houses predominated here. The majestic temple dominated the whole uroch. At that time, it was like modern high-rise buildings. bright coloring brick walls of the Trinity Church, dissected by elegant decorative trim of white carved stone and colored glazed tiles, white German iron covering, golden crosses on green tiled cupolas10 all taken together created an irresistible impression. The architectural masses of the building are compactly arranged, which is obviously due to the harmonious ratio of the external volume and internal space. Contributes to this and the fusion of all the constituent parts of the temple, surrounded on both sides by a gallery.

2 Temple architecture

The plan and composition of the church is based on a quadrangle, which is adjoined by aisles on both sides, an altar, a refectory, a bell tower, a gallery and a porch. The principle of uniting all these parts of the temple goes back to the type of peasant wooden buildings, the basis of which was always a cage with a vestibule attached to it, smaller cages and a porch. This composition is still largely connected with the architecture of the 16th and early 17th centuries and is a kind of completion of its development on Moscow soil. A similar compositional technique can be seen in a 16th-century monument, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior in the village of Ostrov on the Moscow River. Here, on the sides of the main pillar, symmetrical aisles are attached, united by a covered gallery. 2 .

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Each aisle has its own entrance and exit to the gallery. At the end of the 16th century and in the 17th century, this technique was further developed. It should be noted that in the tent covering of the Ostrovskaya Church there is already a gradual transition from the smoothness of the walls to the tent in the form of several rows of kokoshniks. An example of a complete expression of a symmetrical composition with two aisles on the sides is the Church of the Transfiguration in the village of Vyazemy (late 16th century) in the Godunov estate near Moscow and the Church of the Intercession in Rubtsovo (1619 1626). The latter is close in type to the posad temples ( old cathedral Donskoy Monastery and the Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared on the Arbat). However, unlike the five-domed temple in the village of Vyazemy, there is only one dome of light here. The foregoing shows the organic connection of the church in Nikitniki with the township churches of the 16th and early 17th centuries. The architectural tradition of the previous architecture was reflected in the composition of the Trinity Church: two aisles on the sides of the main quadrangle, a gallery on a high basement, three rows of kokoshniks "in a dash". However, the architect managed to find a completely different solution for the external volume and internal space: aisles on the sides of the main quadrangle he placed it asymmetrically: the northern large aisle receives a refectory, while the miniature southern aisle has neither a refectory nor a gallery.

There are three aisles in the Church of the Trinity: the northern Nikolsky, the southern Nikitsky and John the Theologian under the hipped bell tower. Thus, for the first time in the architecture of the 17th century, the bell tower is included in a single ensemble with the church, with which it communicates with a staircase located at the northern end of the western gallery. A new constructive technique that determined the features of the layout of the building is the overlapping of the main quadrangle with a closed vault (with one light dome and four deaf domes), in which inside the church there is a two-height room of the hall type, free from pillars, designed for the convenience of viewing the paintings decorating the walls. This technique was transferred from civil architecture.

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In solving the external volume of the building, the architects managed to find the correct proportional relationship between the main quadruple, the bell tower, rushing upwards, and the lower parts of the building somewhat spreading horizontally on a heavy white stone basement (chapels, gallery, hipped porch). A distinctive feature of the composition of the Trinity Church is that it changes its pictorial and artistic appearance when perceived from the outside. various points vision. From the northwestern (from the side of the present Ipatiev lane) and from the southeastern (from Nogin Square) the church is drawn as a single slender silhouette, directed upwards, making it look like a fairy-tale castle. It is perceived completely differently from the western side from here the whole building literally spreads out, and all its components appear before the viewer: a quadrangle, a horizontally stretched western gallery, flanked by a bell tower emphasizing the height of the church and an entrance hipped porch. This bizarre variability of the silhouette is explained by a bold violation of symmetry in the composition, which was developed in the 16th century and in which the perception of the monument turned out to be the same from all sides.

In the church in Nikitniki an important role is played by elegant external decoration. To attract the attention of passers-by, the southern wall facing the street is richly decorated with paired columns and a complex entablature crowning the walls with a wide multi-fragmented cornice, given in a continuous change of protrusions and depressions, colored tiles and white stone carvings, saturated with complex patterns that create a bizarre play of chiaroscuro. This magnificent decorative finish of the southern wall took on the significance of a kind of signboard for the commercial and industrial "firm" of Nikitnikov. From the side of the courtyard, the processing of window trims and the apse of the aisle under the bell tower is still closely connected with Moscow architecture of the 16th century (Trifon Church in Naprudnaya, etc.). Wonderful decorative The effect is produced on the southern wall by two white-stone carved architraves.The predominant ornamental motif in their three-dimensional planar carving on a notched background is succulent stems with flowers and pomegranate buds. Birds are bizarrely inscribed in the floral ornament. green-blue, on the ornament red and traces of gilding.) These two main large windows, located side by side, amaze with a bold violation of symmetry. They are different in their artistic form and composition. One is rectangular, the other five-lobed, slotted. and dissecting walls, paired semi-columns somewhat weaken the value of horizontal multi-obstruction cornices that cut the line of walls. The vertical tendency of the growing forms of the architraves is emphasized by the upper line of the trenches with skew-shaped kokoshniks and a white-stone kiot placed between them, the high pointed end of which forms a direct transition to the covering along the kokoshniks.

With the overall balance of the white stone decor, it is striking endless variety forms of architraves with rollers, kokoshniks and colored tiles, in which it is almost impossible to find two repeating motifs. The intricacy of the decorative decoration of the façade was enriched by a new kokoshnik-shaped two-blade roof top over the refectory, which was restored during the restoration of the southern wall in 1966 1967 by the architect G. P. Belov. The magnificent decor gave the church the character of an elegant civil structure. Its "secular" features also enhanced the uneven arrangement of windows and the difference in their sizes, associated with the purpose of the interior. 3 .

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The apses of the church are not symmetrical and corresponded to the division of the building into aisles. On the southern "facade" wall, with the help of rows of windows, wall ledges and multi-fragmented cornices, a clear floor division is outlined, emphasized by paired semi-columns on double pedestals in the upper part and a completely different division by wide pilasters of the lower floor wall. This only emerging floor division of the walls in the Trinity Church leads to the appearance of tiered church buildings in the second half of the 17th century.The rich decorative decoration of the southern wall with white stone carvings, decorations with colored glazed tiles placed at the corner in the form of rhombuses, all taken together, as it were, prepares the viewer for the perception of an even more magnificent interior decoration of the church. windows of the southern wall, giving an abundance of light, contribute to the visual expansion of the internal space.Special attention deserves carved white stone portals in the central interior, as if emphasizing new trends in the solution of architectural space, the unification of individual parts of the building.

Here again a free creative technique is allowed - all three portals are different in their forms. North with a rectangular entrance, richly decorated with a continuous ornamental pattern, the basis of which is the weaving of stems and leaves with lush rosettes of flowers and pomegranate fruits (volumetric-planar carving on a notched background).

The portal ends with a half of a lush rosette of a giant pomegranate flower with juicy petals wrapped at the ends. The southern portal is cut in the form of a steep five-blade arch with rectangular sides, as if supporting a strongly protruding multi-fragmented cornice. The same floral ornament on a notched background, in the corners the five-lobed casing is decorated with miniature images of parrots, traces of blue and red paint have been preserved on their tuft and plumage. It is possible that the torn multi-fragmented casing was previously crowned with a giant pomegranate fruit, similar to the pomegranate in the casing of the right window on the south wall. If the northern and southern portals are elongated, directed upwards, then the western portal is stretched in breadth. Low semicircular, it is entirely decorated with a carved white stone relief ornament of intertwining stems and multi-petal flowers of a wide variety of non-repeating patterns. The high quality of the white-stone carving, the proximity of its technique to the carving of the wooden iconostasis and to the carved ornament on the canopy of 1657 of the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Yaroslavl give reason to believe that it is the work of Moscow and Yaroslavl masters, who widely deployed their artistic talent here, in the Church of the Trinity.

The hipped entrance porch with a creeping vault, with two-blade arches with an overhang and carved white stone weights, is strongly pushed forward towards the street, as if inviting every passer-by to come in and admire 4 .

Carved ornamented white-stone weights are the leading motif of the decorative decoration of the church, which is an organic part of the entire architectural composition.

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An intricate hanging weight is also built into the vault of the main building of the church. It represents four birds with spread wings connected by their backs. At the lower end of the weight there is a thick iron ring painted with cinnabar, which served to hang a small chandelier that illuminated the upper tiers of the icons of the main iconostasis. On the inner edges of the hipped porch, there are remains of a painting depicting the painting „ doomsday". In the 17th century, the painting from the entrance porch went in a continuous mite along the creeping vault of the stairs and filled the walls and vault of the western gallery. Unfortunately, no traces of ancient painting and plaster could be found here, all its remnants were knocked down during renovation in the middle of the 19th century.

At the top, in the lock of the arch of the entrance porch, there is a thin, elegant rosette carved of white stone, apparently intended for a hanging lantern that illuminated the scenes of the Last Judgment depicted here. From the western gallery, a perspective semicircular portal with massive iron doors and bars leads inside the church Forged rectangular gratings, made up of intersecting strips, were built specifically to protect paired white-stone painted columns located on the sides of the entrance portal.

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The flat surfaces of the strips on the gratings are entirely covered with a simple incised ornament in the form of a meandering stem, with curls and leaves extending from it. At the places where the stripes cross, there are eight-petalled figured plaques, decorated with small incised ornaments. Iron double doors with a semicircular top are decorated even more elegantly and bizarrely. Their skeleton consists of solid iron vertical and horizontal strips, breaking the door panel into uniform squares. Judging by the remnants of painting, these squares were originally painted with flowers. At the crossing of the strips there are decorations in the form of round through slotted iron plaques lined with scarlet cloth and mica. Images of lions, horses, unicorns and wild boars, various types of birds are engraved on the door strips, sometimes on branches and in crowns. The rich composition of the feathered world is not always amenable to definition. Often animals and birds are combined into heraldic compositions included in a floral ornament. The undoubted existence of the samples used by the masters is evidenced by one of the birds in the crown, entirely borrowed from miniatures for the facial Apocalypse (according to a manuscript of the early 17th century).

3 Current state of the temple

The Nikitnikovskaya Church, unlike most of the previous buildings, is in a rather active relationship with the external space: it is captured by the initially open gallery along the western and (presumably) northern facades, as well as the hipped porch, which is far removed from the temple. However, the landing of the porch, raised above the street and covered with a low overhanging vault, feels like an isolated island, quite decisively cut off from the surroundings. Climbing the stairs already accentuated the transition to another space: after all, the real space was mastered by a person mainly horizontally, and the vertical coordinate belonged to the "higher world" 5 . On the vault of the porch, according to E.S. Ovchinnikova, scenes of the Last Judgment were depicted; they were illuminated by a white-stone lantern suspended from a white-stone rosette in the center of the vault (9). Since the field of view from the porch platform is limited due to the lowered outlines of arches with hanging weights, the one who climbed onto the platform felt turned off from the space of the city, prepared to enter under the consecrated vaults of the temple.

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However, the porch did not lead directly to the entrance to the temple, but to the gallery. When looking at it from the outside, it seems that the longitudinal movement from the porch to the bell tower is undoubtedly predominant in it, which is emphasized not only by the length of the gallery, but also by the organization of its decor. But in the interior, such a decision would be illogical, because. in this case, the enterer would be directed past the entrance to the main building of the temple (this entrance is located not far from the porch, in the second articulation of the gallery. The undesirable effect was eliminated by dividing the internal space of the gallery into a number of cells, each of which is covered by a separate vault, which also has a transverse orientation "Thanks to this, the interior of the gallery is perceived not as a single vector-directed space, but as a sum of small static and relatively independent zones. It is possible that this impression was supported by painting (which has not survived to this day), but it is also quite definitely laid down in the constructive solution. Closed vaults with demouldings, covering the first, third and fourth divisions of the gallery, in principle, do not differ in any way from similar vaults over independent rooms - for example, the refectory of Nikolsky aisle (10). of this vault are located in level with the locks of the vaults of the side cells. The transverse orientation and rather strong narrowing of the vault towards the eastern wall should direct the attention of the entrant to the portal located in this wall - the main entrance to the church.

A perspective portal leads from the gallery to the main space of the temple, flanked by two pairs of free-standing columns, one of the first examples of the use of this detail in ancient Russian architecture after the portals of the Cathedral of the Annunciation. Here, as it were, some stratification of the monolith of the temple is outlined: the space got the opportunity to penetrate between the constructive and decorative form (in contrast to the widespread semi-columns that existed in a single block with the wall). External environment invaded the sacred object, forming an indissoluble unity with it. In the Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki, this is still only a detail, of little significance in the general context, but it concealed the potential for further development of the technique once found - up to full-fledged colonnades of the 18th century.

However, the gates preserved in this portal massive, iron, deaf cut off the interior from the outer space with the same categoricalness. The inscription above the portal (“I will enter your house and bow to your holy temple...”) reminds us that the temple is the house of God and, therefore, in this capacity it is incomparable with those around it. The plots carved on the gates peacocks and Sirins, as well as the flowers written on the door panels, were associated with the idea of ​​paradise, i.e. again about the mountain world, separated from the earthly vale.

However, the space of the refectory at the Trinity Church, where the portal leads, differs relatively little from the space of the gallery - low, transversely oriented, with wall paintings (also lost in the 18th century). The one who entered immediately became clear about its official nature - the vestibule, the vestibule at the main temple. There was no doubt about this three openings, opening a view of the main iconostasis. The openings are quite low; the proportions of the central one gravitate towards a square, allowing one to see practically only the local row of the iconostasis from the refectory. Therefore, from the refectory, the space of the temple itself involuntarily appears transversely oriented and relatively low, similar to the space of the refectory. And only from under the central arch, i.e. in fact, already at the entrance to the main temple, the actual height of the building opens up, more than twice the height of the previous building. The stunning contrast of the "ward" space of the refectory and the main building of the temple opened upwards affects so much that the volume of the church seems to be strongly elongated upwards, although in fact it is almost cubic: its length and width are equal to the height to the vault. The image of paradise, foreshadowed by the plot of the western doors, is clearly embodied in the main space of the church, supported by the theme of the painting of the vault ("Descent into Hell" leading the righteous to heavenly bliss and "Ascension" Christ's ascension to heaven). In addition, the "Ascension" somehow objectifies the feeling experienced by the one who entered - a pull upwards, akin to the "force field" that was formed under the dome of the cross-domed church (it is no coincidence that in the early ancient Russian paintings the dome was occupied by the "Ascension").

This feature of the interior space of the Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki is generally traditional. But along with it, the interior solution contains innovations that run counter to the canonical appearance of the ancient Russian church. The pillarless room looks amazingly solid. It completely removes the dissection and "layering" of the space of cross-domed buildings, due to the allocation of transversely oriented spatial zones altar, salt, central transverse nave, etc. The interior is not divided by pillars; there is not even a salt, which translates the gradation of space according to the degree of holiness (decreasing from the altar to the vestibule) into a purely speculative plan. The altar is completely hidden by the iconostasis, the plane of which formed the fourth wall, similar in appearance to the other three.

Conclusion

Along with the techniques typical of medieval painting, Nikitnikov's paintings clearly show the desire to show scenes in the interior: the depicted conditional structures either stretch upwards or spread out horizontally, as if trying to embrace all the characters, to include them in a single space, identical to the real one. The strong inertia of the old understanding of space is reflected in the fact that the figures are still located rather in front of the chambers than inside them, but nevertheless, the deepening of the space of the frescoes leads to an illusory expansion of the walls, deepening the interior; in fact, the whole wall, like a window, began to be thought of as the boundary of the transition of spaces architectural and picturesque. Outside the pictorial space, the real world reflected in this painting was felt.

The Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki is a beautiful architectural monument. The church building is truly a pearl of Russian architecture of the 17th century caused many imitations both in the capital and in the provinces. Placed on a high basement on a hill, it is visible from afar, attracting the eye with an unusually picturesque silhouette a quadruple directed upwards with twin columns and a slide of elegant kokoshniks is crowned with five domes on high drums, processed with columns and an arched belt. The main quadrangle is echoed by the pyramids of kokoshniks of two aisles: the northern, Nikolsky, and southern, Nikita the Warrior, above the tomb of the merchants Nikitnikovs, and the main volume is an elegant hipped bell tower and a small porch tent. The diverse decorative design of the facades is emphasized by bright two-tone coloring. The cozy interiors of the temple are covered with a multicolored carpet.

The iconostasis contains Stroganov icons, many of the local icons were made by the icon painters of the Armory. For this church in 1659, Yakov Kazanets, Simon Ushakov and Gavrila Kondratiev painted the icon “Annunciation with Akathist”, and the icons “Great Bishop”, “Our Lady of Vladimir” or “Planting the Tree of the Russian State” are by Simon Ushakov.

Now it is a functioning temple and at the same time a museum, but judging by the crumbling porch, the temple clearly lacks a modern Yaroslavl merchant.

Thus, while maintaining the medieval features in the overall composition of the temple the relative isolation of spatial volumes, the high-altitude contrast of the side and central parts, inside each part the space is already solved in a new way, acquiring integrity and unity. The sacred experience of the interior of a cult building is significantly smoothed out, harmonized and receives a different emotional coloring - lighter, calmer and more joyful. Probably the definition of Russian architecture mid-seventeenth V. Paul of Aleppo as "rejoicing the soul" (20) was to a large extent inspired by the peculiarities of the interpretation of its internal space.

List of used literature

1. Kanaev I.P. Architecture of modern Orthodox small churches and chapels: Abstract of the thesis. diss. - M., 2002.
2. MDS 31-9.2003. Orthodox churches. T. 2. Orthodox churches and complexes: A guide to design and construction. - M.: ARCHKHRAM, 2003.
3. Mikhailov B. Modern icon painting: development trend // Church Bulletin. 2002. June. No. 12-13.
4. Experience in the construction of Orthodox churches // Technology of construction. No. 1. 2004.
5. Modern church architecture: Round table of radio "Radonezh". 06/27/2007.

1 Orthodox church architecture. X - XX centuries. // Orthodox Encyclopedia. Volume "Russian Orthodox Church. Russian Church Art of the 10th - 20th Centuries": Internet resource.

2 Moscow is golden. Monasteries, temples, shrines: a guide. - M.: UKINO "Spiritual transformation", 2007.

3 Buseva-Davydova I.L. The evolution of the interior space of churches in the 17th century. (on the example of the churches of the Trinity in Nikitniki and the Church of the Intercession in Fili). In: Architectural heritage. Issue. 38. Problems of style and method in Russian architecture. M.: Stroyizdat, 1995. C. 265-281.

4 Buseva-Davydova I.L. The evolution of the interior space of churches in the 17th century. (on the example of the churches of the Trinity in Nikitniki and the Church of the Intercession in Fili). In: Architectural heritage. Issue. 38. Problems of style and method in Russian architecture. M.: Stroyizdat, 1995. C. 265-281.

5 Buseva-Davydova I.L. The evolution of the interior space of churches in the 17th century. (on the example of the churches of the Trinity in Nikitniki and the Church of the Intercession in Fili). In: Architectural heritage. Issue. 38. Problems of style and method in Russian architecture. M.: Stroyizdat, 1995. C. 265-281.