Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Aleksandrovo-Shchapovo

Initially the church was wooden. She laid the boyar Vasily Petrovich Morozov in his land Alexandrovo , above the river Lubenka, on its high bank. It was in 1612 . The church was small, wooden, with a four-slope dome.

In 1681, Tsar Fedor Alekseevich granted the village of Alexandrovo to a cousin of his recently deceased wife, Queen Agafi Semyonovna Grushetskaya (1663 - 06/14/1668), to Mikhail and Vasily Fokicham Grushetsky, room-room attendants . And almost 150 years after the wooden church was built, V. Grushetsky ( 1743 - 4.04. 1813 , lieutenant-general, actual privy councilor, senator, participant of the annexation of the Crimea to Russia) became the new owner of the village, who had already changed several owners. Instead of wooden, he builds for his money, stone, next to the old. The decree of the Synod on the construction of the present brick church of the Assumption of 1779 says that it should be built next to the old one and icons and other sacred objects should be transferred to it. The new monastery was completed and consecrated in 1779 . The church was built in the style of classicism , but was abandoned from the old, borrowed, wooden form of a four-slope helmet-shaped dome. There was a fence around it in the form of an elongated octagon, with a gate on the south side. This is a building consisting of a double-lined apsidal church and a two-tier bell tower , connected by a lower refectory with three windows. The dome closes the building, with a square tribune and a figured head. Wide tripartite stairs lead to the entrances to the temple and the belfry .

From the old church moved the temple icon of the Assumption, vessels, books and other icons. The iconostasis was painted and covered with gilding. In the dome of the new temple were painted the images of the apostles and the wonders of our Lord Jesus Christ , indicated in the Gospel . The temple icon of the Assumption was also from the old Morozov church.

In 1812 , not far from Alexandrov was the corps of the French. The French pulled up forces to march on Moscow and, while they were camped, made forays into nearby villages. In the Assumption Church, they stripped two silver wages from ancient Gospel books.

In April 1815 with. Alexandrov was sold to brigadier Ivan Stepanovich Arsenyev, who also paid a lot of attention and funds to the church. Soon the village was given as a dowry to the daughter of Arsenyev, whose second cousin was Maria Mikhailovna Arsenyev — the mother of the poet M. Yu. Lermontov . Evdokia Arsenyev added the side-altar of the holy martyr John the Warrior to the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in 1819 .

In March 1889, the manor was bought by Moscow manufacturer Ilya Vasilyevich Shchapov ( 1846 - 1896 ). Over the 40 years that have passed since the death of A.I. Arsen'eva, the church has deteriorated greatly. I. V. Shchapov first of all restored it. On the belfry, he set the chimes clock with a fight, which he specially ordered from England . Their mechanism is still working properly. The second thing - he attached to the church a cozy wooden outhouse, where he arranged a poorhouse for the homeless old women at the church. I. V. Shchapov built two wooden houses for stone houses on stone foundations . In 1892, the Moscow Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood in the village of Alexandrovo opened a parochial school for boys (now Sunday, the building is preserved), a stone building for which was built by Shchapov (now in this building is a parish house). The school enrolled up to 200 children. He "sponsored" the construction of a stone house for the "extended day group," in which the pupils of the parish Alexander School remained. For girls, behind a ravine, a school of lace-makers was built at the church, built by the provincial Zemstvo in 1912 . The school was located near the ravine, in the lowest and most humid place of the estate - this is important for the lace industry, and has been preserved to this day. The girls were taught not only craft, but also literacy.

With the advent of Soviet power, the Podolsk museum subdivision set about eliminating churches in its district. Before the looting of the temple, the new authorities did not even bother to capture, having photographed, the interior of the temple. In the church served as martyr Peter Vorona, who served 10 years as a reader.

In 1929 the temple was closed, and the interior decoration was burned. All icons were broken and burned; only one icon miraculously survived, which was thrown under the wheels of a stalled car - the image of the Holy Trinity. According to the altar girl Maria: “When everything was taken out of the church, the car stalled, and the icon was planted under the wheels. By the grace of God, she survived, only traces of wheels remained. ”

For decades, the temple was used as a smithy, workshops, fertilizer storehouse, from the fumes of which all the murals crumbled. From its original decoration survived only the frescoes under the dome.

In the mid-80s, under the patronage of the director of the Agrofirm "Shchapovo", M. M. Boinovich, the restoration of the building of the temple was started to arrange a concert, organ hall in it. The organ was manufactured in 1988 by Rieger-Kloss (Czechoslovakia, Krnov, opus 3598). It was acquired in 1989 on the initiative of M. M. Boinovich, a connoisseur of organ music. On May 23, 1989, the first concert took place, in which famous organists took part - Harry Grodberg and Oleg Yanchenko.

In 1990 , at the request of the Orthodox community, the church was returned to believers, and the organ was later transferred to a new organ hall in the building of the Municipal Museum of the History of the Shchapovo estate. Restoration work began, and over the past few years, many philanthropists and community works have planned nearby church territories, restored the fence, re-erected a belfry .

On May 19, 1996 , His Eminence Juvenalius, Metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomna, co-serving with the clergy of the Podolsky noble district, served on the renewal of the church and the rite of consecration of the newly built Throne and the altar of the main altar with a recreated carved iconostasis .

Inside the temple there are beautiful carved ebony salaries, the contrast of black (with gold) on white is expressive.

Today, the temple operates a Sunday school , which trains about 100 children, including a group of preschoolers. Children study Orthodox holidays, the lives of saints, the device of an Orthodox church. They also prepare kids for school: they learn to read, write, draw. In the summer, on the basis of the Shchapovskoy Sunday School with the financial support of the RCPM ( Russian Club of Orthodox Philanthropists , with whom the parish cooperates), an Orthodox children's camp is held.

During the Great Church Holidays - Christmas , Easter , the Day of Remembrance of Saints Cyril and Methodius, special celebrations are organized: the performance of performances, verse montages, an exhibition of children's drawings. There is a parish charity at the church: with the help of donators, all those in need are supplied with clothes, shoes, children's things, and medicines. Also, pilgrimages to the shrines of Orthodoxy are regularly made for parishioners: in Solovki , in Diveevo .

In 2004–2005 , an attic was built over the poorhouse.

The community’s newspaper “Parish Gazette” is published (distributed free of charge), which tells about Orthodox holidays, church events, parish life.

On the belfry of the Assumption Church, several bells were installed, different in size and sound, weighing from half a pood to 25 pounds .

• Site of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Aleksandrovo-Shchapovo
• Assumption Church on sobory.ru