Church of the Intercession (Tula)

Construction

For the first time, the parish and wooden church of St. Paraskeva Fridays are mentioned in scribe books for 1567. In the records for the 16th century , the stone Intercession Church was built with the boundaries of St. Nicholas and Paraskeva Friday . The church stood unchanged for 117 years, and then underwent a fundamental restructuring, after which nothing was left of the previous building. Perestroika was caused by several reasons: firstly, the refectory and aisles became cramped for parishioners and dilapidated, and secondly, in 1768 the middle tent was broken by lightning; at the same time, the arches of the temple were damaged. The dismantling of the old temple and the construction of a new one lasted more than twenty years. Considerable funds for the construction were allocated by the church warden, the merchant of the first guild, Gordey Ivanovich Chernikov, who died in 1775. The new church in the name of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and the bell tower was consecrated on September 28, 1790.

Church restoration

All the icons in the iconostasis of the church were painted by the merchant Grigory Ivanovich Belousov. For two of them - the Lord Almighty and the Mother of God - the dependent merchant Artemy Lukyanovich Sidnev in 1806 made silver salaries weighing more than 27 pounds. The silver gilded salary for the icon of the Protection of the Holy Virgin was made at the expense of the merchant Ivan Ivanovich Savishchev. He donated the silver gospel and the silver altar cross to the temple. The tin vessels of the former church were replaced by silver ones.

In 1834, a severe fire broke out in the temple, as a result of which only walls remained of it. But soon the zeal of the parishioners for voluntary donations, the temple was completely restored. The restored church was consecrated in 1838. At the same time, a new large bell was hoisted on the bell tower instead of the one that crashed when falling during a fire. Since 1896, a church parish school operated at the church. On September 21, 1914, the infirmary at the Intercession Church was consecrated - the first church infirmary in Tula.

Temple Closure

The first campaign to close the Church of the Intercession was organized in late 1929, when the liquidation of more than ten Tula churches was being prepared. Workers of private metal enterprises of Tula, Samovar factory them. Lenin, samovar factory them. Turchaninova petitioned the City Council for the transfer of the temple to the club "Metalist", which was nearby. Then the city government did not heed the requests of the working people and the temple operated for more than two years. On April 26, 1932, the Secretariat of the Presidium of the Tula City Council decided to close the church. The decision was motivated by the urgent need for facilities for the training centers of schools and courses of Osoaviahim. On September 14 of the same year, the Presidium of the Moscow Oblast Executive Committee approved this decision, but believers filed a complaint with the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The higher court remained deaf to people's requests and on March 2, 1933 approved the decision of the Presidium of the Moscow Oblast Executive Committee. The church was immediately closed, and after a while the bell tower was dismantled.

In 1961, the Red Furniture Factory was located in the former church. In the late 1980s, the temple building was transferred to a branch of the Institute of Earth Physics to accommodate seismic measuring equipment. The building was repaired, but due to the liquidation of the branch in the early 2000s, the temple was abandoned.

Recovery

The complex of buildings of the Intercession Church (the building of the temple, chapel, trading shops) is a historical and cultural monument of federal significance. He was put on state guard in 1995 according to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation. In 2009, the diocese took control of the temple, but the restoration work did not begin for a long time, due to problems with finding an investor who should restore this temple. In June 2017, the restoration of the temple, included in the list of monuments of federal significance, and the restoration of the bell tower began. The works, without installing the iconostasis and without painting the walls, are planned to be completed by the end of the summer of 2019.

At the temple there was a chapel - the oldest in Tula, mentioned in 1685: “From the graveyard to Nikolskaya Street, the holy gates are chopped with a roof, and decrepit; at the gates of the deesis; near those gates there is a chapel, and her image of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos and other saints is painted on . ” In 1748, the chapel was burned down, and, probably, instead of it was placed “a small stone icon with the image of the Savior” at the altar wall. By the beginning of the 1760s, the kiwota was dilapidated, and in 1766 a stone chapel was built in its place. In 1878, the chapel was rebuilt according to a new project drawn up by the provincial architect Betiutsky. In 1879, an ash-tree iconostasis was built in the chapel, polished in two tiers, with columns and carvings. After the revolution, the chapel was in the housing stock. In 2017, the chapel was restored and consecrated.

• Lozinsky R. R. "Pages of the Past."

• Church of the Intercession on the site "Russian Churches"