Temples of Puchezh Posad

In total, there were 31 churches in the city of Puchezh and Puchezhsky district , of which seven were on the banks of the Volga River . There were 6 churches in the city, counting winter and summer temples. In the first years of Soviet power, all 6 churches worked actively.

In the middle of the 20th century, Puchezh suffered the fate of many Volga cities: in 1957, almost all of its historical part (five churches, civil buildings, 584 residential buildings) was flooded during the creation of the Gorky Reservoir (the area of ​​the city decreased from 211 km² to 98).

Resurrection-Pushavinsky Monastery

According to legend, the settlement on the site of the Puchezha settlement has been known since the 16th century. Initially, fugitive peasants found refuge on a hill north of the mouth of Puszavka, and later, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Voskresensko-Pusavinsky monastery was founded behind Puszavka, which became an important religious center and contributed to the development of the future city. According to the scribe book of 1676, it says that “under the Puchetskaya Slobodka, on pasture land, on the Volga River and on the banks of the Pushavka River, the Pushushinskaya Desert Monastery (Appendix No. 1). The wooden church of the Resurrection of Christ, and in the aisle of Tikhon the Amafun miracle worker, and the other church is the wooden Most Holy Mother of God of Kazan. Both churches are chopped with meals at four corners, the chapters are round, and on the other cross on the crib ^[1] put. The bell tower is chopped. "

The time of foundation of the monastery is unknown, but it is known that in 1645 the monastery already existed. Until 1932, the church of the former monastery had a gospel printed under Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich and Patriarch Joasaph, with the following inscription:

“In the summer of 7153 (1645), on March 30, on a promise, I attached this book, the verb gospel to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos of Kazan of the Pushavinsky Monastery, the black elder Simeon, from that Pushushinsky monastery, with the elder black priest Anthony, and with the elder Valaam, yes with the old man of Cornelius, but under the old man Andrew, but under the old man Agathnikus. Sowing a book, the gospel of the gospel, the Blessed Virgin Mary of Kazan should not have, be drunk or mortgaged to anyone in the house, and whoever takes the book out of the house of the fraternal Virgin Mary will either drink it or lay it and let it be an anathema; and for this butt to remember the parents of the elder Simeon, and after the death of the evo-elder Simeon, and with his stomach to remember him for health; and he signed this book, the verbal gospel, according to him, the elder Simeon, the command of the Puchetsky settlement, the posadsky man Florko Makarov, son of Ikonnik, and not by his will. ”

Instead of the wooden church of the Resurrection of Christ in 1717, by the care of Job ^[2] , Metropolitan of Novgorod, a stone cold Sunday Church was built with the aisles of the Monk Tikhon of Amafun and the Monk Zosima and Savvaty, Solovetsky miracle workers. At first the church was under one head, covered with tesa.

According to the will of Job, who died in the patriarchal office, a lot of church utensils were sent to the Pushavinsky monastery, including the shroud embroidered with gold and silk as early as 1441 (Appendix No. 2). In 1929, she was seized and is now exhibited in the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin. In 1734, instead of the wooden church of Our Lady of Kazan, a stone warm church of the Nativity of the Virgin was built with the side chapel of the Archangel Michael.

Next to the Church of the Resurrection, the flax-spinning factory of Joseph Iosifovich Senkov will later appear. The main person in this church is Father Nikolai Svirsky, and the deacon was the grandfather of the well-known teacher in Puig, Mikhail Smirnitsky, Pavel Kostenevsky. It was he who compiled the first "Brief Description of Puchezh Posad ...". Both the priest and the deacon served in the church for hire, and their church community employed the church headman. Traditionally, the church elders in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ were the descendants of immigrants from the village of Katunka, related to the reverend Metropolitan Job. The last church elder of the church was repressed in the case of Baron A. Nolde Lukichev Mikhail Ionovich; he also handed over to M. Kalinin the Novgorod shroud of Puchezh work in exchange for Soviet citizenship and a passport.

Church of the Resurrection at Pusawka

The Church of the Resurrection at Pusawka (Appendix No. 3) is an outstanding piece of church architecture executed in the form of the Naryshkin Baroque ^[3] , it was noted for its voluminous composition: a church of the octagon type on the four ^[4] was crowned with a five-domed ^[5] . The facade decor was also original, including, along with elements characteristic of this style, peculiar details, the most striking of which were the wide stripes of the curb ^[6] on the sides of the octagon, separated by narrow smooth masonry ribbons.

It was painted only in 1789 by the Yaroslavl masters brothers Dmitry and Peter Ikonnikov, Stefan Zavyazoshnikov, Andrey Ikonnikov, Semyon Zavyaskin, Vasily Sarafannikov, Alexei Zhenikhov and Platon Ikonnikov. This mural is a wonderful example of the Volga monumental painting of the late XVIII century. While the style of classicism flourished in metropolitan art, the province gravitated to the splendor and pathos of Baroque art, adapting it to the traditional methods of writing temple murals. Among the plots, along with the traditional ones, they actively used new ones that came from Europe at the end of the 17th or 18th centuries and had a didactic-moralizing character. Among them is the “Ship of Faith”, which occupied a significant place in the mural system of the Puchezh temple. This plot was popular in popular print engraving. Also, printed sheets often served as a model for icon painters and masters of mural painting.

In the murals of the temple, made in the 1st third of the 18th century, the traditions of ancient Russian painting and Baroque were originally combined. Of particular interest was the huge multi-figure composition “The Last Judgment”, which occupied the entire western wall. This painting on the theme of heaven and hell markedly stood out in the temple. The picture looked like this. In the center are the scales of God, one cup of which descended into hell, which is sinful for sinners. In hell, there were depicted cauldrons under which fire was burning, and in the cauldrons there was boiling resin, devils and pitchforks ran around the cauldrons, poking sinners on the forks, they threw them into tarry boilers. The other scales served for sinless souls who were sent to paradise for eternal bliss.

In the 1st half of the 19th century, a magnificent iconostasis ^[7] in the style of classicism was installed (Appendix No. 4)

In 1765, the monastery was abolished, and the churches became the center of the Zarechny parish. The stone bell tower was built in 1802. It was in the cell of the Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from 1789 to 1839 that the mysterious nun Arkady lived, who called herself Barbara Mironovna Nazarieva, where she was buried on the right side of the church.

Pushavin Desert Monastery

The monastery, called the Pushavin Desert, was small, it was not independent, but, most likely, was a branch of a larger one. Closest to him was a monastery opposite Yurevets - Krivoezerskaya deserts. In 16 cells of the Pushavinsky monastery there were only 12 elders. He was fenced with a fence 90 to 68 meters long. In the fence there were some “holy” gates with 11 icons, and the rest were “traveling”. Over time, the wooden fence was replaced by a stone one, and cells with tented roofs were put in the corners.

In our 18th century copies, an inventory of churches, Puchezhskaya Sloboda itself and the surrounding villages dating back to 1676 came to us. It says: " Yuryevets county of Volga region, Puchezhskaya settlement, and in it there is a wooden church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, and the honest chapters of John the Baptist are within the limits." So the inventory begins. Next is a detailed description of the churches, which lists all the vestments, all church utensils. By 1676 there were two churches in the settlement itself. In addition, two temples were in the monastery. All the churches were wooden, with refectory and porches. They were covered with tesa, and the heads are upholstered with "scales" (ploughshare). Crosses are upholstered in white German iron. The belfries are chopped, seven bells are mentioned on one, five on the other. Among the interior decoration of churches, in addition to expensive fabrics, gilt crosses and pearl jewelry are mentioned. In the inventory of the Transfiguration Church, there were 36 printed books, in the Ascension Church at the monastery - 40 printed books. And books were expensive then. The churches, in any case, of the Kazan Mother of God in the monastery, had a tent completion.

Economics

The buildings of the Puchezh churches were wooden, but they themselves were by no means poor. Puchezh priests successfully traded; churches owned land near Puchezh with 5.5 tithes of land. Beyond the Volga, the temples owned 1.5 tithes and reaps (grasslands) with 155 horns.

In addition, many villages on the other side of the Volga were recorded behind the church and did not pay tax to the treasury. Sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich everywhere fought against this practice. A decree was issued in order to attribute the peasants of those Trans-Volga villages to the new parish and to open the fifth church in the name of the Savior Transfiguration in Puchezhskaya Sloboda. Since a great pestilence recently occurred in those villages, the emperor ordered the houses to be dismantled, sold in Puchezh at the bazaar, and the money transferred to the royal treasury. An almshouse with 35 cells was opened in the settlement against the Transfiguration Church, 42 old women lived in them, here 24 people “widows and girls of the poor, feed on the name of Christ”. Alms-breakers lived not only due to alms, but also due to their garden. This is what the 17th century Puchez appears to us.

Fires

During its existence, the wooden Puchezh repeatedly burned. In August 1773, Puchezh burned out the whole of August 1773, including the Preobrazhenskaya and Nikolskaya churches. “A big chapter caught fire in the cold church, then the people fell to their knees and prayed with tearful sobs, regretting the temple of God more than about their property. During the fire, all the ancient holy icons and utensils were able to endure. Only one large Miraculous Image of the Savior, suspended from the ceiling on thick linen ropes, was left as a sacrifice by the inhabitants of the flame, but Yaroslavl merchants who loved antiquities and then traveled from the Makaryevskaya Fair managed to take it off ” ^[8] .

After 29 years, Puchezh posad was completely burned out again. This time the churches remained unscathed, but on the cathedral bell tower wooden floors and stairs burned down, a large bell was damaged, which had to be transfused. After the fire Puchezh was built in the best possible way.

Successful economic development contributed to the expansion of Puchezh. In 1793, he was renamed the settlement from a settlement. At the end of the XVIII century, the construction of new stone temples begins here.

Upland Church

The longest of all of them will stand on the steep right bank of the Volga with the five-domed, with a white-stone ^[9] colonnade ^[10] , the Nagornaya Church is a wonderful architectural monument (Appendix No. 5).

Church of the Transfiguration

In 1776-1812, on a hill in the center of the posad, the trustee of the local merchant Pyotr Ivanovich Ikonnikov erected the Church of the Transfiguration "that is on the mountain" (Appendix No. 6), together with a detached bell tower completed by the spire of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. The massive double-decker ^[11] quadrangle ^{[12] of the} temple had a narrow attic ^[13] belt and ended with a low baroque roof and a head on a light drum ^[14] . The main volume was adjoined by a lowered pentahedral apse ^[15] and a widened extended refectory ^[16] . The stingy decor was flat and emphasized the power of the wall.

The church had two prayer buildings - Winter and Summer churches, covered with iron, surrounded by a stone fence with iron bars. Inside both temples, the walls and ceilings were covered with paintings. The winter temple had three altars ^[17] : the main one - in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the right - in honor of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine, the left - in honor of St. Alexei the Man of God. The summer temple also had three altars.

More than a hundred icons of revered holidays and saints were in both temples. For example, “on the left side of the Tsar’s Gate is the icon of the Kazan Mother of God in the womb, sewn in gold, humbled by 15 large, 983 medium and 9952 small pearls, with a silver crown with multi-colored stones. Above the royal gates is the icon of the Last Supper in a gilded radiance. Many icons in silver gilded salaries with the same crowns, in robes sewn with gold and silver, studded with pearls with stones of different colors. " The inventory indicates the amount of silver in the garments and crowns with the calculation in pounds and spools. The ancient Gospel in a sheet, in a silver setting with an enamel decoration of 1834, and the Gospel in a silver setting with chased images of 1698 and 1755, the silver crosses of the 84th gilded, decorated with molded ornaments and black were entered into the inventory. There was a large number of silver and copper vessels in the temple, shirts embroidered with gold, silver candlesticks, chandeliers of 45 lamps, gilded chandeliers ^[18] and many gold-embroidered vestments with pearls, a robe and gilt elemental.

On the bell tower of the church there were 8 copper bells weighing 800 pounds. The largest weighed 522 pounds (in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the largest bell weighed 210 pounds), and the smallest - 1 pound. The Nagorno-Preobrazhenskaya church towered on the site of today's obelisk to soldiers - the Puchezhans who died in the Great Patriotic War.

Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker

The next two temples are being built at the foot of Posad Hill on the north side of the coastal bazaar. In May 1775, a low church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker with a chapel of Athanasius of Alexandria was erected here (Cathedral parish: St. Nicholas winter stone church). Initially, it was covered with a test and had one chapter, later it was blocked with iron and 15 chapters were made. Around all the churches was a stone fence with iron bars.

The architecture of the church is designed in the spirit of provincial baroque, and its voluminous composition is close to the Church of the Transfiguration "that is on the mountain", but the apse here is three-part, and the refectory is narrower.

In 1799, next to the Church of St. Nicholas, closer to the river, a large summer church of the Transfiguration “what's under the mountain” was built (Cathedral Church: Summer Cathedral Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord) (Appendix No. 7) - an interesting architectural monument of this time, combining the forms of ancient Russian architecture and individual elements of early classicism ^[19] . By the decree of the Kostroma Spiritual Consistory of July 2, 1916, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was allowed to be called the cathedral, that is, the main one in Puchezh.

The church was a monumental two-light five-domed cathedral-type church with a reduced three-part apse. At the top, the quadrangle was decorated with imitation of semicircular zakomaras ^[20] , bounded above and below by profiled cornices. The corners were marked with enveloping shoulder blades ^[21] , and the walls were cut by small openings with elegant platbands, partly resembling a pattern of platbands of the Resurrection Cathedral.

At the beginning of the 19th century, octagonal vestibules were added to the western and side entrances to the church - vestibules with baroque roofs and two-column conical porticoes on three sides.

At the same time, a slender three-tier bell tower was erected, completed with a faceted roof, a light drum and a spire and decorated with porticoes. The stone bell tower at the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was built in 1791, its height with a cross was 24 fathoms (30 meters) (Appendix No. 8). 12 bells hung on the bell tower: 475 pounds, 306 pounds, 162 pounds, two 33 pounds each and the rest were lighter. One of the two bells in 33 pounds was an ancient cast. When the bells for casting cannons were removed under Peter I, the Puchezhans removed this bell and drowned in the Volga so that it would not go for re-melting. After the end of the war with the Swedes, the bell was again raised to the bell tower.

Church of the Nativity of the Virgin

In 1799, the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin was built (Zarechny Parish: the winter stone church of the Nativity of the Virgin). It replaced a more ancient wooden temple (Appendix No. 9).

A new stage in the urban development of Puchezh began in the 1830s. After a big fire, when almost all of the wooden buildings burned out, a master plan was drawn up, according to which Puchezh posad received a clear regular layout. In 1844, at the expense of the merchant D.P. Ikonnikov, the Church of the Assumption was built (Upland Parish: the summer stone church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) with two aisles: on the right side - St. Dmitry of Rostov, on the left - the Holy Great Martyr Catherine (Appendix No. 10).

The building, sustained in late classical forms, in many ways resembled the Trinity Cathedral in Kineshma (Ivanovo Region). A massive single-lumen volume square in plan, mounted on a high stylobate ^[22] , had an attic tier ^[23] and was crowned with five large chapters. A semicircular apse adjoined the quadrangle to the eastern wall ^[24] ; the centers of the other three facades were emphasized by the strongly advanced four-columned porticoes ^{[25] of the} Corinthian order, completed by triangular gables ^[26] . All order elements of the temple were distinguished by the development of forms and testified to the experienced hand of its creator.

It should be added that in the late XIX - early XX centuries, 2 parish schools worked in Puchezh. One was called Zarechnaya, where children (65 people) studied for 3 years, and the other worked at the Upland Parish, the number of students in its three classes reached up to 40 people. And in 1913, another parish school was opened at the Posad Cathedral, the training in it was also 3 years.

"The bells rang over the Volga ...". One can imagine what an amazing harmony of sounds the belfry of only one Voskresensko-Zaretsky church gave birth, which had 11 bells. But the voiceless temples left a lasting impression. The Bolsheviks combined the struggle for power and the destruction of the old system with the struggle against the Russian Orthodox Church. The Ivanovo diocese of persecution of these years was not spared. 1922 is a time when 23 million people in Russia were starving. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Tikhon, appealed to his flock with an appeal in which he called for help to the starving. Then, with the blessing of the Patriarch, the All-Russian Church Committee for the Relief of the Starving was founded. Fundraising began in temples and among believers; In the year of great tribulation, the Orthodox Church confidently and authoritatively became the leader of the hunger strike movement. For the Soviet government, this was not profitable.

Despite the protests of believers, the authorities nevertheless proceeded to seize values . The initiator and inspirer of this action was Trotsky, who provided members of the Politburo with instructions on how to seize church property.

The Soviet government was not satisfied with one seizure of church values. The process of destruction of temple buildings began. He was relieved that, according to the decree of the Council of People's Commissars “On the Separation of the Church from the State and the School from the Church,” published on January 23, 1918, no church and religious societies in Russia had the right to own property, did not have the rights of a legal entity, all of them the property was declared public property. Buildings, objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes, were given under special decrees of local and central authorities only for free use of the respective religious societies. Therefore, local authorities, "at the request of the working people," could easily take away a religious building from the Church, reprofiling it or simply destroying it. “For the first time in the history of world civilization, starting from the 1920s, organized and systematic destruction of churches, bells, and icons began throughout our country. Since it was impossible to change the psychology of people, the struggle with religion was reduced to the mass closure and destruction of temples, which was presented as the success of anti-religious work. ” It was the Ivanovo region that became the site of the beginning of the repression associated with the seizure of church values. The temples of the city of Puchezh suffered the same fate. In the 1930s, crosses and domes were removed from churches in Puchezh, and buildings were occupied by warehouses.

In 1931-1932 all the iron monuments and crosses from the cemetery for remelting were removed from the Nikolskaya church and the chapters were dropped. In 1933, in connection with the prohibition of bell ringing in the area, the bells were dropped and broken from the bell tower of the Nagorny Parish (Appendix No. 11).

In the same 1933, in July, the bells were removed and broken from the bell tower of the Zarechny parish. Here is how V. Zakharov recalls this:

“Before breaking, inside the churches from the walls and ceiling, restorers took pictures. They glued fabric or special paper onto the drawings, smoothed them tightly, and then removed them, the result was the same as on the wall or on the ceiling. Then they were carefully put into the car body, each was shifted. When everyone removed what was needed, they left. Disassembly began primarily with a cable and tractor. Drop the big dome. When the dome hit the ground, a column of dust rose. There were many bird nests in it. And they decided to drop the whole bell tower. Dismantling from above is dangerous, and expensive. Began to disassemble from below. The masonry was solid. When they chose half the thickness of the bell tower, they began to lay thick, dry bars, logs. Using the block, two thick steel cables were lifted up, fastened, and the lower ends were tied to two heavy caterpillar tractors called “Stalinets”. At first they began to lower the bell. Halfway down, the bell hit the wall, broke and fell. A large triangular-shaped splinter broke off from him. There was an engraving similar to lace around the bell circumference: how many bells weighed, I don’t know, sitting, you can fit in it freely. The bell, together with the fragment, was loaded onto the car and taken away, and the bottom of the bell tower still continued to disassemble and lay the logs. When more than half were taken apart, the logs and beams laid under the bell tower were doused with kerosene and set on fire. Tractors pulled cables. We were asked by all curious to move away. Nearby was a fire engine, as they say, just in case. When the logs and the boards were half burned, the tractor pulled the cables, but the bell tower did not sway. They pulled with all their might: they stalled, sparks fly from under the tracks. Already the logs burned down, and the bell tower stands. Soon a third tractor of the same type came up. Three tractors began to be pulled - and everyone stalled. Suddenly there was a strong crack. All of us, as the wind blew away, whom to where. The bell tower bent a little, the tractors continued to be pulled. For a few seconds the bell tower still stood and began to slowly fall. On impact, even the earth quaked. Fell, but did not fall apart, and did not crumble, only in several places it broke. Nearby stood a wooden one-story building of a kindergarten, so the windows burst in it, either from a blow, or from fragments. Gradually, everyone began to disperse silently, as if they had lost something. And they lost what you can’t turn back. It was, of course, hard to look at. But what can you do - apparently, this is the fate of our old Puchezh "

^[27] . (Appendix No. 12)

All the buildings of the churches and the bell tower were completely demolished (with the exception of the building of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Upland Parish) in 1954-56 in connection with the transfer of Puchezh. Since the building of the former Church of the Resurrection of Christ was of considerable value as a monument of architecture, some of the frescoes from it were removed with plaster and moved to Moscow to the Academy of Arts. The portal of the church and part of the wall of the octagon were transported to the Donskoy monastery in the capital. The church building itself was soon sold to one of the collective farms and dismantled into brick.

It should be noted that in the war and after the war, until the beginning of the 1960s, active persecution of the church ceased, which was facilitated by the pronounced patriotic position of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Great Patriotic War. For some time the church could exist legally. However, shortly after Stalin's death in 1953, signs began to appear of a possible change in the position of religion in the USSR. Khrushchev N. S. saw in the revival of religion a danger to the building of communism. Over 10,000 churches were closed throughout the country. After Khrushchev was removed from power, the closure of churches in the Ivanovo region ceased.

The year 1988 is the year of the millennium of the Baptism of Russia. Since the 1990s, the temples of the city of Puchezh have been revived. So at the moment in the city there are the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov (1991) (Appendix No. 13), the Church of St. George the Victorious (Appendix No. 14), the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord (Appendix No. 15).

Of course, the revival of church life taking place on Ivanovo land became possible only against the background of the general democratic transformations taking place in the country. The new Law on Religious Freedom of 10/25/1990 introduced to the Russian Orthodox Church the wide opportunities of ancient monasteries and temples, spiritual, educational, educational and charitable activities. For decades, our city lived without a single church. But no matter how we suggest to ourselves that we are doing the right thing in the spirit of modernity, we still sigh with delight, we are delighted when, by chance, we swam past old Russian cities along the same Volga in a fast-moving meteor.

Be that as it may, temples are not only talented works of architecture, but also a manifestation of the Russian soul. From time immemorial, temples have served as a starting point for Russians in major life events: baptism, weddings, funeral services, people came here to take the burden off their souls, and wish their neighbors good health. Even defenders did not go to military affairs without crossing the threshold of the temple. People wanted to gain strength and faith here. And they got it.

It is unfortunate that not one of the temples of Puchezh Posad has survived to this day. How wonderful it would be if the bell ringing sounded again in Puchezh over the great Russian river Volga.

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