Trinity Epiphany Monastery

The Epiphany Trinity-Sergius Monastery was located at the Trinity Gate of the Kremlin. It was a compound of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, which was founded at the beginning of the XIV century. According to legend, Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy allocated the land to St. Sergius of Radonezh for the construction of cells and the church in case of his arrival in Moscow. In the second half of the XV century, the courtyard received the status of a monastery and was under the control of the abbot . But even after this, the territory was mentioned in documents as a monastery, then as a compound ^[1] .

The first church built in the monastery in honor of the Epiphany of the Lord was wooden. It was rebuilt in brick in the years 1480-1481 ^[2] . From the Moscow annals of those years:

That same summer, the old Epiphany church in the Trotsky courtyard in the city was dismantled and a new one was laid down in the same place ^[1] .

In November 1532, Vasily III baptized the son of Yuri in the monastery. The rite was performed by Father Superior Joseph Skripitsyn and Daniil Pereslavsky. In 1557, a church was erected in the name of St. Sergius. It was a hipped , one-headed , three-apse structure with a bell tower attached to the south wall ^[1] .

Near the monastery in the early 1600s were the courtyards of Semyon Nikitovich Godunov and Bogdan Belsky . To the left of the Trinity Gate is the building of the Palace Judicial Order ^[1] .

In 1607, at the courtyard, the townspeople who swore allegiance to False Dmitriy confessed to a crime against former Patriarch Job ^[2] .

All posadskaya Moscow, guests from all the settlements and hundreds of elders, hundreds , merchants and craftsmen, and all sorts of masculine sexes, who have submitted petitions to the former patriarch from the multitude, with great crying and inconsolable cry, forgive and allow popular oaths of the people. In the cathedral, the archdeacon from the pulpit read the voice of petition, and then the farewell authorization letter, written by decision of the entire spiritual council ^[1] .

In the XVII century , candidates for patriarchs lived in the monastery until they were ordained to the dignity and archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. The royal family visited the compound on patronal holidays. It also hosted Muscovites and other Russians during the election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the reign ^[1] .

In 1661, at the behest of Alexei Mikhailovich, a new chapel church was built in the name of St. Theodore Stratilates . It was built by Russian masters Ivan Apsin and Emelka Semenov. In the inventory of 1763, it is said of her: “Between the Epiphany and Sergievskaya the ultimate in the name of Fedor Stratilat, 5 fathoms long, 2.5 fathoms wide, covered with tesos ” ^[1] .

In 1679, Fyodor Alekseevich indicated opening a school in the monastery to study the Greek language ^[1] .

In 1764, by decree of Catherine II, the territory of the Trinity Compound was transferred to the state. Ministers were evicted, buildings were used first by the Palace, then by the Senate Office. A court order and a commandant's house were placed in the monastery buildings. In 1807-1808 the temples of the courtyard were dismantled, and in their place began the construction of the Kremlin Armory ^{[1] [2]} .

According to the Kremlenagrad plan of the early 1600s, the territory of the monastery had a pentagonal shape. It consisted of two parts, separated by a high fence on wooden poles. The northern part was separated from Trinity Street by a corps extending from the Church of St. Sergius to the one-domed church of unknown initiation. Further east, to the walls of the royal court, fences did not exist. The southern territory was marked by a fence erected from a one-domed church to buildings on the western border. In the center of the monastery fence from the south was a one-story building with an arched passage. Between him and the western building was made another opening ^[1] .

Closer to the eastern border of the southern part stood the Epiphany Church. He was a three-headed, three-apesous with a zakosomarny coating. Presumably, the three-domed completion existed before the fire of 1565, then the cathedral was rebuilt into a one-domed one with a tent. Zakomary, kokoshniks and the door portal had keeled completion. The walls were decorated with spatulas with flat capitals and decorative belts - columnar and of square widths with round medallions ^[1] .

What the church of St. Sergius looked like can be found in the drawing “Books on the Election of the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich ...” created in 1672–1673. In terms of its shape had the form of a Greek cross . It was two-tier, on the low drum there was a cupola with an eight-pointed cross. The tent was decorated with colored tiles . The central apse protruded from the level of the eastern wall and ended with a triangular pediment . There were round windows in the side apses, and arched in the northern side wall. The refectory stood at the western wall. The funeral service was performed in it, the tsarina, princesses and princes were present at the prayers ^[1] .

On the south side of the church of St. Sergius was a two-tier bell tower with an arched opening in the upper tier, in which a large bell was installed. The inventory of 1763 indicates that there were six in all ^[1] .

• Voronov A. Monasteries of the Moscow Kremlin . - M .: Publishing House of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University, 2009.
• At the Trinity on Gravity ... Compound of the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Lavra in Moscow. - M. , 2003 .-- S. 73.