Trinity Church in Nikitniki schedule of services. Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki. Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki in the 20th century

Photo: Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki

Photo and description

The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity was built in 1628-51. commissioned by the merchant Grigory Nikitnikov on the territory of his estate. Previously, on this site stood the wooden Church of St. Nikita the Martyr in Glinishchi, which burned down in one of the Moscow fires.

The Trinity Church in Nikitniki is an interesting architectural monument in the “Russian pattern” style. This temple subsequently became a model for the construction of many Moscow churches. The slender proportions of the central part of the church are crowned with a five-domed dome, to the base of which are adjacent three rows of kokoshniks. The central head is light.

There are two aisles, northern and southern, adjacent to the northeast and southeast. The northern aisle has a refectory, like the main temple. The tented bell tower is located in the northwestern corner of the temple and is connected to the refectory by a covered gallery - a porch. This entire part of the temple resembles the mansions of ancient Russian wooden architecture. The entrance to the church is decorated with a tented porch. Such “mansion” porches were later added to more ancient churches. The covered gallery and porch, the platbands of the two main windows of the southern facade are reminiscent of the decor of the Kremlin Terem Palace. The southern aisle of the temple was the family tomb of the Nikitnikovs and did not have an entrance from the street, but communicated only with the temple.

The well-preserved multi-colored mural painting of the temple with many everyday details was presumably made by Kremlin masters (Ya. Kazanets, S. Ushakov, etc.), and later became a model for the paintings of churches of the 17th-18th centuries in cities such as Yaroslavl, Rostov, Kostroma and Vologda. These same Kremlin masters later painted icons for the temple iconostasis.

In 1904, the chapel of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God was consecrated in the basement, after which the temple received its second name.

The temple was closed in 1920, and it housed a branch of the State Historical Museum. In 1923, a museum of painting by Simon Ushakov was opened in the church. In 1941-45. The museum was evacuated and reopened after the war only in 1963.

Services have now resumed in the church.

There are few true masterpieces of marvelous Russian pattern left in the capital. It is no coincidence that when constructing new churches, Moscow architects took this particular church as a model.

Dependent on a Yaroslavl merchant

Until recently, getting to the Trinity Church was very simple - from Vasilyevsky Spusk, go up Varvarka Street and, before reaching Varvarsky Gate Square (formerly Nogin Square), turn left into Ipatievsky Lane. It was also possible to get there from the Kitay-Gorod metro station. Now, alas, the situation has become more complicated - the temple seems to be “sandwiched” between huge alien buildings, and even ended up in a restricted area. Ipatievsky Lane was blocked with gates and barriers, which are open only on weekdays. A fence appeared on the side of Old Square. However, these obstacles are quite easily overcome, and the diligent pilgrim will be rewarded a hundredfold: the temple will show him its unique beauty and all its shrines.

At the end of the 16th century, there stood a small wooden church in the name of Nikita the Martyr “on Glinishchi”. It burned down during a devastating fire in 1626, but the revered icon “St. Nikita with the Life” survived and fell into the hands of a wealthy Yaroslavl merchant Grigory Leontyevich Nikitnikov, who owned several shops in shopping arcades on Red Square. He lived nearby, and his mansion, they say, could compete in luxury with the home of any of the king’s entourage. In 1631, Nikitnikov allocated a large sum for the construction of a new church, and since it was actually located in his yard, the entire area was named Nikitniki.

“The sovereign’s granted isographer had a hand”

Judging by the documents, the church was built by the best Moscow artel, the one that built the Terem Palace in the Kremlin. If even now the temple building makes an unforgettable impression, then one can imagine how unusual it looked for its time. Bright red walls with white stone platbands, a pyramid of kokoshniks (“tongues of fire”), green domes…

In the 19th century, the idea even arose that the temple was not designed by an architect, but by an icon painter. Perhaps the famous isographer of the Armory, Simon Fedorovich Ushakov, is the favorite master of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. True, this is just a guess. But here’s what is known for sure: Ushakov was assigned to carry out interior paintings. And he and his assistants Joseph Vladimirov, Yakov Kazants and Gavrila Kondratyev coped with the task brilliantly.

For Ushakov, the Trinity Church became his favorite, and for many years later he sought to complement its splendor with his icons. By the way, the artist’s stone chambers with his workshop stood next door - in Ipatievsky Lane, they also survived.

The King of Heaven crowns the king of earth

Ushakovo frescoes cover the temple interior with a continuous carpet and create a unique flavor. In the bottom row of the main five-tiered iconostasis there are several shrines at once. These are large icons of “The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles” by I. Vladimirov, “The Annunciation with Akathist” (joint work of Y. Kazants, G. Kondratiev and S. Ushakov) and “Our Lady of Vladimir”, or “Planting the Tree of the Russian State” by S. Ushakov . The latter deserves special mention.

In the middle part there is an oval image of the Mother of God, and around, on the branches of a tree symbolizing the Russian state, there are images of Russian saints and portraits of princes and tsars. Below you can see the Kremlin wall, and behind it the Assumption Cathedral, near which Grand Duke Ivan Kalita and Metropolitan Peter are watering a growing tree. On the Kremlin wall rise the figures of Emperor Alexei Mikhailovich, Empress Maria Ilyinichna and their sons, Alexei and Fedor. At the top of the icon is Jesus Christ presenting the Angels with a robe and a crown for Alexei Mikhailovich. The King of Heaven crowns the king of earth.

The artist’s deep intention is obvious: this is the praise of the Mother of God - the great Intercessor and Patroness of the Russian Land, and the glorification of the history of Moscow, and the apotheosis of the ruling dynasty, and the affirmation of the unity of the state and the Church. Based on the iconography of the genealogy of Jesus, called the “Tree of Jesse,” Simon Ushakov created an original and extremely spiritual work, in front of which you can stand for hours.

Deliverer from the plague

Another local shrine is a copy of the miraculous Georgian Icon of the Mother of God.

In 1622, during the conquest of Georgia by Shah Abbas I, the icon was taken to Persia, where it was accidentally noticed by a certain Stefan Lazarev, clerk of the Yaroslavl merchant Yegor Lytkin. The clerk managed to buy the image from the Persians. On the same day, Lytkin himself, who was thousands of miles away, saw a wonderful icon in a dream and received orders to send it to the Montenegrin Mother of God Monastery near Arkhangelsk. This was done as soon as Lazarev returned with the icon from his long journey.

At the monastery, the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God became famous for its many healings. In 1654, it was brought to Moscow to renovate and make a new frame. At that time, a plague epidemic broke out in the city, lines of believers flocked to the icon, and a miracle happened: the disease receded.

In gratitude for the healing of his son, Gabriel Evdokimov, a silversmith, ordered a copy of the Georgian icon from Simon Ushakov, and after some time donated it to the Trinity Church. Orthodox Muscovites, who deeply revered this icon, often in everyday life called the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity the Church of the Georgian Mother of God “on Varvarka”. When the 250th anniversary of Moscow's deliverance from the plague was celebrated (1904), a separate chapel of the temple was dedicated to the image.

Under constant care

All work on the beautification of the Trinity Church was completed by 1653. The Nikitnikov family, generation after generation, carefully looked after their ancestral temple, fulfilling the spiritual will of its builder: “... and decorate the Church of God with all sorts of ornaments, and incense, and candles, and church wine, and give to the priest and other clergy together, so that the Church of God without singing was not and for no reason did not become, as it was with me, Gregory.” It is curious that the great-grandson G.L. Nikitnikova Ivan Grigorievich Bulgakov was more interested in art and the church than in commercial affairs, it was under him that the final point was set in the magnificent temple decoration - he did not spare money for this.

The southern aisle, small, very cozy, dedicated to Nikita the Martyr, was especially close to the Nikitnikovs. First of all, by the consonance of his surname with the name of the saint. It was here that Grigory Nikitnikov moved the same hagiographic icon of Nikita the Warrior from the burnt temple. Among the paintings on the altar you can see a portrait of the Nikitnikov family (an exceptional example, because never before have lay people, even temple builders, been placed among the saints). The grandchildren of the temple founder, Boris and Gregory, who died early, were buried under this chapel.

Russian rulers did not ignore the church either. Alexey Mikhailovich presented two copper chandeliers with double-headed eagles as a gift. One of them hangs under the main vault, the other, smaller, in the Nikitsky chapel. And in April 1900, Nicholas II and his wife visited the temple, and the emperor personally ordered what renovations should be made to it.

Stalin praised

Services in the Trinity Church in Nikitniki stopped in 1920 (in the lower aisle - in 1929), but fortunately the building was not destroyed, but was immediately turned into the Simon Ushakov Museum. Thus, the outstanding artist, one might say, has posthumously contributed to the preservation of this island of spirituality.

True, one day a real threat of demolition loomed over the church. But here the unconditional mercy of the Most Holy Theotokos was revealed. Joseph Stalin, they say, having learned that the second name of the Trinity Church is the Church of the Georgian Mother of God, said: “A very correct name!” And the building was left alone.

Later, the Museum of Ancient Russian Painting, a branch of the State Historical Museum, opened here, and then a major scientific restoration of the facades was carried out, and frescoes of the 17th century were cleared of later layers.

In the lower temple there is a stone bowl for the blessing of water. Its lid weighs 80 kg, but the entire bowl weighs 600 kg. It is made from a single stone called “Jerusalem Rose”. It is mined in Palestinian quarries in the Holy Land. The Edicule of the Holy Sepulcher was also constructed from the same material. It was at the Holy Sepulcher that the lid of the Nikitnikov water-blessing cup, made by craftsmen in Jerusalem and presented as a gift to the parish, was blessed.

And in the 1990s, a gradual return of prayer life within these walls began. And this process went on for almost two decades until the museum was finally vacated. But even after this, services in the main church of the Holy Trinity are held quite rarely, on major holidays. As for the rest of the upper aisles, only Nikolsky is fully operational. In Nikitsky it is necessary to equip a new iconostasis, because the old one was taken away as an artistic value by visiting museum workers. The chapel of the Apostle John the Theologian (under the bell tower) requires complete restoration; Sunday school classes are now held there.

So for now, the everyday activities of the parish are concentrated in the basement - in the newly equipped “winter” church of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God, where the carved icon case with the copy of her miraculous image now resides.

We will definitely pay attention to the copy of the miraculous Kazan-Tobolsk Icon of the Mother of God, in front of which the last Russian emperor prayed during his exile in Tobolsk.

Coming

In the center of the capital, where the temple stands, there are few residential buildings, which means there are few parishioners. However, together with the rector, Archpriest Arseny Totev, his spiritual children also moved here from the Church of St. John the Warrior on Yakimanka, where he previously served. They formed the backbone of the parish. Many invited their loved ones. Mostly they come from remote areas of the city. One way or another, the parish worked out, and the priest is very happy about it. “Until the entire church was given to us, the lower chapel often could not accommodate everyone,” says Father Arseny, “people stood on the street and listened to the service through speakers.

Now, of course, it has become easier, and, for example, on Easter more than a hundred people come to us. And God grant that this continues!”

To the pilgrim's note:

Old Russian painting of the Trinity Church in Nikitniki

Fresco wall paintings


This place is located in the very center of Moscow. But well hidden from prying eyes. Finding Nikitnikov Lane is almost impossible. Nowadays, all approaches are fenced. By the end of the 19th century, the small square with the church was lined with tall buildings. In the 20th century, the surrounding buildings became even more dense.

Beginning of Nikitnikov Lane



The beginning of Nikitnikov Lane is sandwiched on both sides by huge buildings of the early twentieth century, built in the Art Nouveau style. Particularly pressing on the right is the building, monstrous in its proportions, called “Boyarsky Yard”, built according to the design of F. Shekhtel, which surrounded the church in Nikitniki and closed it from the square. The two-light arch of the utility entrance to the courtyard of this “Courtyard” alone is taller than the church building and overpowers the remarkable architectural monument of the 17th century. This is far from the only example of a barbaric attitude towards national history on the part of the financial tycoons of pre-revolutionary Russia.



And here the church looks against the backdrop of Soviet architecture of the 1970s.



But even after making your way along the endless line of cars, you find yourself in a small square where the church stands somewhat freer, but there is a background of buildings of the CPSU Central Committee, built here in the 1970s. Truly, the temple is sandwiched on all sides by buildings from all centuries.


The architecture of the church has been well studied. Trinity Church in Nikitniki was built in the mid-17th century. This architectural structure of remarkable beauty was built during the years 1635-1653 at the expense of the merchant G. Nikitnikov, a native of Yaroslavl. He was so rich that even the Moscow tsars turned to him for help.....

The main advantage of the church in Nikitniki is that here we meet Synthesis of Arts.

It belongs to the very few well-preserved monuments of Russian history, where architecture, painting, wood and stone carving are combined into a single synthesis of arts.

The architectural monument with its magnificent white stone carvings of platbands and portals, first-class icons and wall paintings appeared after restoration in its original form. A unique wall painting from 1652–1653 was discovered.

And my article is mainly devoted to some issues of ancient Russian painting. Fresco paintings in this building cover all the walls; there are so many of them that they represent an endless picture of intertwining scenes.

The two-height space of the main quadrangle is completely covered with a picturesque carpet. The walls, the closed vault and even the window slopes, like a huge illustrated book, present Biblical and Gospel stories and parables in rows in strict sequence. But the frescoes on religious themes were painted as cheerful and colorful paintings, transferred to the atmosphere of Russian life in the 17th century.



General view of the northern wall



Iconostasis



The frescoes rise to the top of the walls and extend to the vaults


You need to be a great connoisseur of Old Russian painting to understand all these subjects, and even more so to understand them. I leave this question for specialists, and I will show in detail only two fragments that I tried to understand.

I climb the entrance staircase, as it should be - very steep, and enter the small elongated volume of the western gallery. From the gallery there are several entrances to separate rooms of the temple. Entering any room and moving to the next, you soon lose orientation in space. You find yourself in a labyrinth in which one space goes into the next and so on ad infinitum. This was the case for many years while the church was a museum.



Plan of the Trinity Church in Nikitniki

It must be said that for many decades the building of the Trinity Church in Nikitniki was a branch of the Historical Museum. Since 1963 - a museum of ancient Russian painting. And it was one of the most intimate Moscow museums, where only connoisseurs and lovers of Russian architecture came. After all, within these walls the building itself was a museum; there were no other “exhibits”.

The museum also hosted concerts of early music, both Russian and European. There were wooden benches in the hall, simple and heavy, like in ancient Russian chambers. And a lot of people came.

My wife and I were also there for the concert. A small chamber concert where an ancient violin and cello sounded. And Ivan Monighetti played the ancient harpsichord (such an unusual name I remember!). Just when, in what year could this have been? Probably in the seventies.

These were memorable concerts, because the music sounded in a hall with excellent acoustics. And the whole atmosphere, the specific sound of ancient instruments and, as it were, frescoes on the walls coming to life. And the interior of the ancient Russian hall, which remembers centuries.

I repeat that fresco painting covers all the walls with a carpet

I have chosen two fragments for myself to show them in close-up and with the necessary explanations.



1 - So, in the center of the western wall, above the arch of the entrance to the main quadrangle of the church, there is a plot based on the parable “About the Wise and Foolish Virgins.”

To the right and left along the arc of the arch there are steps of the staircase along which the maidens rise to the doors of paradise, five on each side. And at the top they are met by Christ himself with the angels. Firstly, all the girls are dressed in Russian costumes of the 17th century. On the left are sensible maidens in simple clothes, with their sleeves rolled up high, just after work. But on the right there are completely different girls - from the wealthy merchant class, obviously. They are dressed in bright sundresses and animatedly gesticulate, continuing a cheerful conversation. But the doors of heaven were closed in front of them! Knock or don't knock, the door is closed. This is how a simple artist from the people conveyed his attitude towards the working people and the rich. An ancient parable in a painting by an ancient Russian artist acquired a bright and clearly worldly sound.

Zaryadye is one of the largest corners of Moscow, located in the southern part of Kitay-Gorod. This place got its name because it is located behind the shopping arcades.

We will begin our journey from the Kitay-Gorod metro station, and our route will mainly lie along Varvarka. Varvarka is one of the oldest streets in Moscow and the main street of Kitay-Gorod. In 1380, the holy noble prince Dimitry Donskoy entered the capital along it after his victory on the Kulikovo Field. Nowadays it is one of the most unique streets in the center of Moscow. On the side of the Moscow River it consists entirely of ancient buildings. Nowadays, on the day of the celebration of the memory of the Slovenian teachers Cyril and Methodius, a religious procession takes place here, heading from the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin to Slavyanskaya Square, to the monument to these saints. In former times, at the end of Varvarka there was the Varvarsky Gate, on which the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God was installed.

Before walking along Varvarka, let's go to Nikitnikov Lane. On the corner of Varvarka there is the building of the former Church of John the Baptist. There is now an institution in it, and the church was built by Filaret Nikitich Romanov in memory of his dedication to patriarchy on June 24, 1619. In the 18th century. the church was renovated, and a chapel was made in it in honor of the holy martyrs Clement, Pope of Rome, and Archbishop Peter of Alexandria in memory of the accession to the throne of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, which fell on the day of the celebration of these saints in 1742. There was also a chapel of the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God - this the miraculous icon was placed on the Varvarsky Gate.

Let's turn into Nikitnikov Lane, and the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki opens up to us. No matter how many times you’ve been here, you always look at this creation in amazement, your eye runs from bottom to top along the passages, platbands, cornices to kokoshniks. This beauty was created in honor of the Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity. Approaching the temple, you admire it, and the words of the prayer arise by themselves: Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us, and the “Trinity” of St. Andrei Rublev appears before your eyes, and you feel the smell of birch and dry grass, which is strewn on the floor of the temple on the holiday. Initially, there was the Church of the Great Martyr Nikita on this site. 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 (Georgy) 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 chapels in this church are dedicated to St. Nicholas, the Apostle John the Theologian, and the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God. Georgian icon of the Mother of God in the 17th century. from Georgia through Persia she came to Russia and became famous for her miracles. In 1654, during the world plague, the icon was brought to Moscow, and a copy of the miraculous icon was placed in the Trinity Church in Nikitniki. It must 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 famous - “Planting the Tree of the Russian State,” which deserves special consideration. There are wonderful paintings in the temple.

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

The process of “secularization” begins in architecture. Architects of the 17th century, when constructing churches, started from the usual forms of civil mansion and chamber architecture, from folk wooden buildings. This inspired skilled builders and talented stone carvers, who were closely connected with the people and with the craftsmanship environment.

New forms of architecture and painting were born in an acute struggle with the theological foundations of the church-feudal worldview, in a struggle that testified to the crisis of the religious-symbolic tradition in art and the emergence of a new, vital direction in it.

In decorative and applied arts - in painting, in stone and wood carvings - artists borrow images of plant and animal motifs directly from life. They skillfully fit them into the plane of the wall, into the platband, portal or into decorations on the frames of iron doors. In this world of brightly colored flowers with flexible stems, the colorful plumage of birds, reality and fairy tales are intricately intertwined, and realistic tendencies are making their way more and more persistently. The shifts that took place in the art of the 17th century were supposed to contribute to the emergence of new fresco ensembles, and they are actually created in township churches. On the walls of churches there appear cheerful, colorful paintings on the themes of gospel legends, the actions of which are transferred to the atmosphere of Russian life in the 17th century. One of these temples was the Trinity Church. Fascinating genre scenes flow into her painting in a wide stream, the scope of which was given by the plots of parables abundantly presented here.

Former asceticism disappears. Life itself poured into the church painting with all its concreteness: events, scenes, settings, costumes, household items, with human experiences and sorrows. The artists who worked in the Trinity Church faced a difficult task - to find a way to place a complex composition of biblical and gospel scenes on the walls and vaults of a small temple. Solving this problem with great artistic tact, the masters did not overload the compositions with multi-figure scenes and decorative variegation. The rhythmically calm structure of the pictorial tiers evenly encircling the walls, the clear chronological sequence in the placement of subjects, the large-scale correspondence of the depicted figures and the distance separating them from the viewer - all this taken together created a new visual multi-episode system of painting, harmoniously combined with the design of the interior space of the church. The innovations in the painting of the Trinity Church did not pass without a trace. The outstanding Moscow model caused numerous imitations. In the second half of the 17th century, similar cycles of fresco images decorated the churches of the Volga region cities, built in suburbs by order of wealthy merchants or at the expense of small traders and artisans. These monumental ensembles of the late 17th century, destroying the church tradition that had developed over centuries, represent new aesthetic values. Turning to the surrounding reality and introducing direct observations of nature and everyday life into traditional church painting paved the way for Russian art of the 18th century. Trinity Church in Nikitniki stands on a high hill. The slender elongated proportions of its central part, crowned with five chapters, placed on a high basement, create a harmonious, integral architectural image.

In 1634, when the monument was completed, the Kitai-Gorod area was just beginning to be built up with boyar and merchant estates and courtyards; small wooden houses predominated here. The majestic temple dominated the entire area. At that time it was similar to modern high-rise buildings. The bright coloring of the brick walls of the Trinity Church, dissected by elegant decorative trim made of white carved stone and colored glazed tiles, the covering of white German iron, golden crosses on green tiled domes10 - all taken together created an irresistible impression. The architectural masses of the building are compactly arranged, which is obviously due to the harmonious relationship between the external volume and the internal space. This is also facilitated by the unity of all the components of the temple, surrounded on both sides by a gallery.

The plan and composition of the church is based on a quadrangle, to which are adjacent chapels on both sides, an altar, a refectory, a bell tower, a gallery and a porch. The principle of combining 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 canopy, smaller cages and a porch attached to it. 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 in the village of Ostrovo on the Moscow River. Here, symmetrical aisles are built on the sides of the main pillar, united by a covered gallery.

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 roof of the Ostrovskaya Church there is already a gradual transition from the surface 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 chapels on the sides is the Church of the Transfiguration of the village of Vyazema (late 16th century) in the Godunov estate near Moscow and the Church of the Intercession in Rubtsov (1619 - 1626). The latter is close in type to the posad churches (the old cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery and the Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared on the Arbat). However, unlike the five-domed temple in the village of Vyazema, there is only one light dome. The above shows the organic connection of the church in Nikitniki with the settlement churches of the 16th and early 17th centuries. The architectural tradition of previous architecture was reflected in the composition of the Trinity Church: two chapels on the sides of the main quadrangle, a gallery on a high basement, three rows of kokoshniks “in a dash.” However, at the same time, the architect managed to find a completely different solution for the external volume and internal space: he placed the aisles on the sides of the main quadrangle asymmetrically. The northern large aisle receives a refectory. The miniature southern aisle has neither a refectory nor a gallery.

So, in contrast to the Church of the Transfiguration in the village of Vyazemy. where the gallery goes around the quadrangle on three sides, in the Trinity Church the gallery is preserved only on two sides - on the western and northern (the latter, dismantled in the 18th-19th centuries, has not yet been restored). There are three chapels in the Trinity Church: the northern one is Nikolsky, the southern one is Nikitsky and St. John the Evangelist under the hipped bell tower. Thus, for the first time in the architecture of the 17th century, the bell tower is part of a single ensemble with the church, with which it is connected by a staircase located at the northern end of the western gallery. A new constructive technique that determined the features of the building’s layout is the covering of the main quadrangle with a closed vault (with one light dome and four blind ones), in which inside the church there is a two-light, hall-type room free of pillars, designed for the convenience of viewing the paintings decorating the walls. This technique was transferred from civil architecture.

In solving the external volume of the building, the architects were able to find the correct proportional relationship between the main quadrangle, the bell tower, rushing upward, and the lower parts of the building, somewhat spreading horizontally, on a heavy white stone basement (altars, 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 different points of view. From the north-west (from the side of the current Ipatievsky Lane) and from the south-east (from Nogin Square) the church is depicted as a single slender silhouette directed upward, making it look like a fairy-tale castle. It is perceived completely differently from the western side - from here the entire building literally spreads out, and all its component parts appear before the viewer: a quadrangle, a horizontally stretched western gallery, flanked by a bell tower that emphasizes the height of the church and a tented entrance porch. This bizarre variability of the silhouette is explained by the 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, elegant external decoration plays a big role. 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-broken cornice, given in a continuous change of protrusions and depressions, colored tiles and white stone carvings, rich in complex patterns, creating a bizarre play of chiaroscuro. This magnificent decorative decoration of the southern wall acquired the significance of a kind of signboard for Nikitnikov’s commercial and industrial “company”. On the courtyard side, the processing of the window frames and the apse of the chapel under the bell tower is still closely connected with Moscow architecture of the 16th century (Tryphon Church in Naprudnaya, etc.). A wonderful decorative effect is produced on the southern wall by two white stone carved platbands. The predominant ornamental motif in their volumetric-planar carving on a notched background is succulent stems with flowers and pomegranate buds. Birds are intricately incorporated into the floral ornament. (When clearing the window casings, remains of coloring were discovered: green-blue on the background, red on the ornament, and traces of gilding.) These two main large windows, located next to each other, are striking in their bold violation of symmetry. They are different in their artistic form and composition. One is rectangular, the other is five-blade, slotted. The vertical lines of the platbands and the paired half-columns dividing the walls somewhat weaken the significance of the horizontal multi-broken cornices that cut the line of the walls. The vertical direction of the growing forms of the platbands is emphasized by the upper line of the trenches with skeletal kokoshniks and a white stone icon case placed between them, the high pointed end of which forms a direct transition to the covering along the kokoshniks.

Despite the general balance of the white stone decor, one is struck by the endless variety of forms of platbands with bolsters, kokoshniks and colored tiles, in which it is almost impossible to find two repeating motifs. The intricacy of the decorative decoration of the facade was enriched by a new kokoshnik-shaped two-bladed roof over the refectory, restored during the restoration of the southern wall in 1966 - 1967 by the architect G. P. Belov. The lavish decor gave the church the character of an elegant civil building. Its “secular” features were also enhanced by the uneven arrangement of windows and the difference in their sizes, associated with the purpose of the interior spaces.

The apses of the church are asymmetrical and corresponded to the division of the building into chapels. On the southern “facade” wall, with the help of rows of windows, wall ledges and multi-part cornices, a clear floor division is outlined, emphasized by paired semi-columns on double pedestals in the upper part and a completely different division of the lower floor walls by wide pilasters. This only emerging floor-to-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 on the corner in the form of diamonds - all together, as it were, prepares the viewer to perceive the even more magnificent interior decoration of the church. The large windows on the south wall, providing an abundance of light, contribute to the visual expansion of the interior space. Particularly noteworthy are the carved white stone portals in the central interior room, as if emphasizing new trends in the design 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. The northern one has a rectangular entrance opening, richly decorated with a continuous ornamental pattern, the basis of which is made up of weaving of stems and leaves with lush rosettes of flowers and pomegranate fruits (volume-planar carving on a notched background).

The portal ends with half 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-lobed arch with rectangular sides, as if supporting a strongly protruding multi-broken cornice. The same floral ornament on a notched background; at the corners the five-lobed casing is decorated with miniature images of parrots; traces of blue and red paint are preserved on their crest and plumage. It is possible that the torn MULTI-broken casing was previously crowned with a giant pomegranate fruit, similar to the pomegranate of the casing of the right window on the southern wall. If the northern and southern portals are elongated and directed upward, then the western portal is stretched in breadth. Low, semi-circular, 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 closeness of its technique to the carving of the wooden iconostasis and to the carved ornament on the canopy of the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Yaroslavl in 1657 give reason to assume that it is the creation of Moscow and Yaroslavl masters, who widely developed their artistic talent here in the Trinity Church.

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

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

An intricate hanging weight is also embedded in the vault of the main room of the church. It represents four birds with outstretched 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, which 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 “The Last Judgment”. In the 17th century, the painting from the entrance porch ran continuously along the creeping vault of the staircase and filled the walls and vault of the western gallery. Unfortunately, no traces of ancient painting and plaster could be found here; all its remains were knocked down during renovation in the middle of the 19th century.

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

The flat surfaces of the stripes on the lattice are covered entirely with a simple incised ornament in the form of a twisting stem, with curls and leaves extending from it. At the places where the stripes intersect, there are eight-petalled figured plaques decorated with small incised patterns. Iron double doors with a semicircular top are decorated even more elegantly and fancifully. Their frame consists of solid iron vertical and horizontal strips, dividing the door panel into uniform squares. Judging by the remains of the painting, these squares were originally painted with flowers. At the crossing of the stripes there are decorations in the form of round through slotted iron plaques, once lined with scarlet cloth and mica. The door strips are embossed with images of lions, horses, unicorns and boars, various types of birds, sometimes on branches and wearing crowns. The rich composition of the feathered world is not always definable. Animals and birds are often combined into heraldic compositions included in floral patterns. The undoubted existence of the samples used by the masters is evidenced by one of the birds in the crown, entirely borrowed from the miniatures for the front Apocalypse (according to a manuscript of the early 17th century).

Icon painters who had sketches and drawings from icons and books, which they carefully preserved and passed on from generation to generation, could provide such drawings to blacksmith masters. Among the decorations on the doors, various designs of the fabulous bird of paradise of Syria stand out. With their eyes wide open, the birds seem to vigilantly peer into the face of everyone entering the temple. On the horizontal stripes in the heraldic composition are images of fairy-tale mermaids with outstretched arms and steeply curled tails, peacocks, skates, unicorns, lions, etc. The figurative motifs of these animals and birds are inexhaustible. Here you can feel a living perception of reality, a fantastic world of fairy tales, and religious prejudices. However, it would be wrong to assume that the craftsmen who worked on decorating the front door could have forgotten about its church purpose. The images on the door are dominated by Sirin birds and peacocks, which the church considered to be a symbol of the Christian soul and paradise.

N.P. Sychev believes that in the composition of the painting of the northern niche in the Church of Boris and Gleb of 1152 in Kideksha, peacocks indicate the “paradise” environment in which the depicted saints reside. This allows us to say that the ideological concept behind decorating the door was to create a picture of paradise. But in the naive creative imagination of the craftsmen from the people, the idea of ​​​​a Christian paradise was intertwined with fantastic images of the fairy-tale world. Images of the “mermaid-bereginya”, winged griffins, horses and other birds and animals go back to pagan beliefs. According to pagan beliefs, mermaids were prayed for rain. Winged griffins and other animals protected life from evil spirits. The pagan symbols included in the images on the carved doors of the Trinity Church testify to the vitality of these non-canonical images, closely associated with folklore, in the folk art of the 17th century.

On Sunday I went on a tour with the Archnadzor around Kitay-Gorod, which fell behind the fence. In essence, it was a small circle around the city, ending at the porch of the Trinity in Nikitniki. Where the most persistent ones went on an excursion to the church.

The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki was built by Yaroslavl craftsmen in the period from 1631 to 1634 on the site of the wooden church of Nikita the Great Martyr. The wooden church appeared somewhere in the 70s of the 16th century (in 1571 all the earlier buildings burned down due to the visit of Khan Devlet-Girey) and existed until the fire of 1626. From that first church of Nikita the Martyr on Glinishchi, only the temple icon of Nikita the Great Martyr (1579) has survived. The current building was built by a wealthy Moscow merchant, a native of Yaroslavl, Grigory Leontyevich Nikitnikov, next to his own house. The chapels of Nikolsky, Nikita the Martyr and John the Evangelist (under the bell tower) were immediately built in the church. Later, a chapel of the icon of the Georgian Mother of God appeared in the basement of the temple.

The architecture of the church is the 17th century in all its glory :). I think this style is called patterned. I would call it liberated patterning, because the main feature by which you recognize this style and this time is thoughtfully APPROXIMATE symmetry. There seems to be order, but no one strives for clear uniformity and no one wants it. This is truly Russian conciliarity through pluralism... ;))
On the excursion we were told that the temple was built not according to a drawing, but according to a drawing by an icon painter (possibly Simon Ushakov). It is the work not of an architect, but of an artist. Here visual images freely grow into one another, without the need for mathematical precision. For example, the halos of saints standing in a dense crowd in paradise become zakomars or gather in groups and form inflorescences of window openings... But saints are people and are all different in their fate, which means the zakomars must be a little different in order to correspond to them.

Here is one window on the right, and the other on the left. There are always two windows, but one is larger, the other is smaller; one is thinner, the other is thicker; one is decorated with carvings like this, and the other like that. And this elongated curved window in the gallery above the porch is actually some kind of Art Nouveau. Most of all it reminds me of Shekhtel next door. I'm just tormented by doubts - is this really the 17th century?

Here is the carving on the window. At first glance, it seems that this is a symmetrical ornament. Nothing of the kind - these are freely wobbling curls, approximately following a certain pattern.

Here is a cinnabar drawing on the walls of the temple. It seems to be repeated, but it is approximately repeated.

Everything inside is covered with 17th century frescoes. You should come by sometime with binoculars and take a closer look. I filmed a little secretly.

The main church has a magnificent carved iconostasis from the 17th century. In the chapel of St. John the Theologian, a tyablo iconostasis (more ancient in design) has been preserved.

In short, before the presidential fence is completed, visit the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki. Amazing place.

 

It might be useful to read: