Kazan Church (Tula)

The first stone church in the name of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Tula was built to replace the nearby wooden church of Archangel Michael. Construction was carried out at the expense of the royal treasury by Protopresbyter Lukian Kirillov. The Kazan Church, built in 1646–1649, was five-domed and belonged to the type of “Moscow” churches that was widespread at that time in Russia, as well as the nearby Blagoveshchenskaya church: onion domes and a wide cornice ribbon with semicircular kokoshniks. In the Kazan temple there was a stone two-story aisle: on the lower floor there was an altar in the name of Archangel Michael , and in the upper - in the name of Sergius of Radonezh . On the Sergiev side chapel was a stone bell tower with an iron clock. In 1817, the two-story aisle was rebuilt into a one-story.

The Kazan Church was badly damaged in the fire of 1834. In 1838, it was dismantled and it was decided to build a new temple on this site, according to the project of architect V.F. Fedoseev. A significant part of the money for the construction of the Kazan Church was donated by the merchant of the second guild, a hereditary honorary citizen Stepan Ivanovich Trukhin. For various reasons, the construction of the Kazan Church dragged on for almost twenty years, and its coverage took place only on July 6, 1858. The new bell tower was erected in 1868. The main volume of the temple was crowned with a dome with large windows and columns between them. On the northern and southern facades there were pediments and columns of the Corinthian order. The three-tier bell tower, the second and third tiers of which were decorated with paired columns in the corners, adjoined the refectory. In its style, the temple corresponded to late St. Petersburg classicism. The icons and wall paintings for the revived church were made by academician Timofey Egorovich Myagkov (1813-1865).

The name of the church became the basis for the emergence of three Tula toponyms: Kazan Embankment , Kazan Square and the Kazan branch of the railway.

In November 1914, Emperor Nicholas II , during extensive visits to the central and southern provinces of the empire, visited Tula. The imperial train arrived at Kursky (now Moskovsky ) station at ten in the morning. After that, Nicholas II left for Kazan Church in an open car. An eyewitness to the events, Major General Dubensky, says: “Crowds of people stood everywhere on the path of the royal passage; there was a singing: “God save the tsar”, the clique “hooray” ... In the church on the occasion of the feast of the introduction of the Most Holy Theotokos into the church, the liturgy was performed in the highest presence by the Archbishop of Tula and Belevsky. At the entrance to the temple, the Sovereign Emperor was greeted by the word of the lord. At the end of the liturgy, the Sovereign Emperor applied to the local shrines and received a blessing from the archbishop - an icon . ”

Among the values ​​of the Kazan Church, which had artistic and historical significance, was the carved Kazan icon of the Mother of God on a silver board - a gift from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his wife Maria Ilyinichna , made in 1665 "for the birth and long-term health of his son ... Simeon." The Kazan icon of the Mother of God, sewn in gold and silver in a red satin, was also kept in the temple; according to legend, it was made and donated to the church by Natalya Kirillovna , the second wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the mother of Peter I. Another Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was sent to Tula by Metropolitan of Kazan Markell in 1698. There was also the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God of 1597 in a rich setting, made in 1694 from gold and silver, decorated with precious stones and pearls.

Another royal gift to the temple is a censer with a silver lid made in the shape of a church. There is an inscription on it: “Summer 7170 (1662) the great sovereign tsar and grand duke Alexy Mikhailovich, an autocrat of all Russia granted this censer to the church of Our Lady and Our Lady Mary of Honest image of Kazan, on Tula” . The church had an altar cross in a chased silver gilded setting, decorated with gems and pearls, with the inscription: “7165 (1657) built the Annunciation Protopop, which the Sovereign in the hallway, Lukyan Kirillov, in Tula — to the church of the Most Holy Theotokos of Kazan, which is on the landing” .

In early April 1922, the Soviet government seized church property - according to the official version, to help the starving Volga region . The lists of values ​​seized from the Kazan Church, quoted in the Kommunar newspaper on April 7 and 11, 1922, include 22 silver vestments from icons, 2 silver banners, 12 silver icons, 4 covers from the Gospels - more than 16 pounds of silver in total.

On April 18, 1922, the church watchman, opening the bell tower and rising on it, found there the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is unknown how it got there. He had not seen this icon before. The watchman told the rector of the church about this, and for two days in the Kazan Church a moleben was served to the newly appeared image. The authorities regarded the incident as a “quackery” of clergymen, directed against the seizure of church values. On the night of April 19 to 20, the entire clergy of the church were arrested, the watchman who found the icon, and at the same time the bishop of Tula and Belevsky Iuvenal . In July 1922, a trial was held, the accused were sentenced to different terms of imprisonment.

In September 1924, the building of the former church was handed over to Melpromtorg. And in 1929, the Kazan Church and the Old Trading Rows were dismantled into a brick, from which they built a kitchen factory (now the building of the Tula branch of Sberbank) and a school of the Federal Law School (factory training) of the arms factory (now Nikita Demidov College).

• Lozinsky R.R. Pages of the past.
• Kazan Church on the site vidania.ru

• College of them. Nikita Demidov on the site of the church
• Church on the map of Tula in 1909 (signpost. IX)