Sretenskaya Church (Winter Palace)

The first temple of the Presentation of the Lord appeared in the Winter Palace under Catherine I ^[1] . The church, designed by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was built on the site of the eponymous temple that existed in the palace of Anna Ioannovna . Its decorative decoration was engaged in the master I. Dzhani ^[2] . Images of the interior of the church have not been preserved and information about its initial decoration is scarce ^[3] .

The temple was consecrated on January 10 ( 21 ), 1768 . Possessing a convenient location near the residential half of the palace on the second floor of the north-west projection , it was used for private worship services of the imperial family ^[1] .

Under Nicholas I, the Sretenskaya Church received the status of a cathedral and services were performed there every year on December 14 to commemorate the tragic events of Nicholas's ascension to the throne ^[1] .

The church was destroyed by a fire in 1837 , in which the entire palace suffered. Its restoration, along with other premises, was entrusted to V. P. Stasov . The architect wanted to abandon the attempt to recreate the pre-fire view of the church and make it two-light - but this was not approved by the emperor, who stated in the task “to try to resume everything as previously as possible” ^[3] . The restoration project, drafted with the active participation of Nicholas I, was approved in April 1838 and, in general, the post-fire decorative decoration reproduced the original appearance of the Sretenskaya Church ^[3] .

The small church was the first room of the Winter Palace, restored after a fire ^[3] . Her consecration took place on the eve of her temple festival , the day of the Meeting of the Lord , February 1 ( 13 ), 1839 - one and a half months earlier than the Great Church of the Winter Palace . The rite of consecration was performed by the Metropolitan of Kiev and Galician Filaret (Amphitheatres) ^[2] .

After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government nationalized the Winter Palace, including both house churches located in it. In November 1917, the State Hermitage Museum was opened on the basis of the Winter Palace. On May 29, 1918, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region denied the Brotherhood of Parish Councils to use the premises of the former home church, located in the museum. The right to use the premises of the church was transferred to the Museum of the Revolution, and in 1929, when building the lecture hall of the museum, the iconostasis was dismantled. In 1939, when setting up the office space for the Hermitage, the walls were covered with shields with canvas, the ceiling was whitened, and the decorative elements were dismantled. Later on, the Hermitage’s restoration workshops were housed in the home church building.

In the 1990s, the restoration of the preserved decorative decoration of the church was carried out , during which a beautiful ceiling was cleared. At present, the room is used for the needs of the Hermitage’s restoration workshops.

The decorative decoration of the Sretenskaya Church was recreated by V. P. Stasov in 1838-1839. To reproduce the original, pre-fire, appearance, information was used on its repairs at the end of the 18th - first third of the 19th century, stories about how its interior looked.

The church received a sophisticated gilded baroque decoration - some elements of the decor were gilded on the colored substrate ground, while the volume images of the heads of angels and the rocaille ornaments were made of papier-mâché . The walls were dissected by pilasters and painted in light blue.

Since there was the Diamond Room above the church, the building had no vaults; the flat ceiling was decorated with a plafond depicting the Descent of the Holy Spirit by N. A. Maikov according to the drawing by TA Neff .

A two-tier iconostasis by V. Bobkov was installed in the church:

In the iconostasis there were 16 icons, some of which are old images saved during the fire, painted on canvas in the second third of the 18th century, supposedly by I. I. Belsky and I. Ya. Vishnyakov (there are no documents indicating authorship and more accurate time of writing icons) ). On the walls were placed new images from the images of saints , written by T. A. Neff . The choice of plots was carried out in accordance with the memorable dates in the history of the imperial house.

A belfry with a baroque onion dome was built on the roof of the palace above the Little Church. The staircase of the palace leading to the Sretenskaya church was called the Church .

From the end of the 19th century, the sacristy of the church kept a gilded silver cross with the relics of the Three Saints and a part of the Life-giving Tree , which was brought from Pantakrator ( Athos ) monastery ^[1] .

• Great Church of the Winter Palace

• Zimin I.V. Winter Palace. People and walls. The history of the imperial residence. 1762-1917. - SPb. 2012

• The Cathedral of the Savior of the Hand-to-hand Image and the Church of the Presentation of the Lord in the Imperial Winter Palace Encyclopedia article in St. Petersburg