The Temple of Sophia of the Wisdom of God is located on the right southern bank of the Moscow River opposite the historical center of Moscow - the Kremlin, in an area enclosed between the main channel of the Moscow River and its former channel, or oxbow lake, which over time turned into a chain of small reservoirs and swamps, which received the common name "Swamps". This unique temple was erected by Muscovites in honor of their victory over Novgorod. The first wooden church, founded at the end of the 15th century, according to scientists, was located a little further from the place where the stone St. Sophia Church now stands - closer to the House on the Embankment.
The wooden church was first mentioned in chronicles in 1493. At that time, ancient Zamoskvorechye was still called Zarechye, where the road to the Horde passed. However, the terrible fire of 1493, which devastated the settlement (the area near the eastern wall of the Kremlin), also reached Zarechye. The fire also destroyed the St. Sophia Church.
In connection with the decree of Ivan III in 1496 on the demolition of all churches and courtyards opposite the Kremlin: “That same summer, along the Moscow River against the city, he ordered a garden to be repaired,” it was forbidden to settle in Zarechye opposite the Kremlin and build residential buildings on the embankment. And in the space freed from housing, it was necessary to arrange something special. And the Zarechensky territory was given over to the new Sovereign Garden, called Tsaritsyn Meadow, by the future Gardeners, which was laid out already in 1495.
Near the Sovereign's Garden, a suburban settlement of the Sovereign's gardeners arose, caring for the Garden. It was they who gave the later name to the area. Only in the 17th century did gardeners settle in the immediate area of the garden itself and in 1682 they built a new stone St. Sophia Church.
Not long before, Archpriest Avvakum himself preached in the old church, and “he excommunicated many parishioners with his teaching.” As a result of this “desolation of churches,” he was exiled from Moscow.
In the fire of 1812, the St. Sophia Church was slightly damaged. In the report on the condition of Moscow churches after the enemy invasion it was said that on the St. Sophia Church “the roof collapsed in some places due to the fire, the iconostases and the holy icons in them are intact, in the present (in the main church) the throne and clothes are intact, but the antimension was stolen. In the chapel, the throne and antimension are intact, but the saccharine and clothes are missing. ... The books for sacred services are intact, but some of them are partly torn.”
Already on December 11, 1812, less than 2 months after the expulsion of the French, St. Andrew's chapel of the temple was consecrated. In this chapel, as in all existing churches in Moscow, on December 15, 1812, a thanksgiving prayer service was held for the victories won over the army of the “twelve tongues.”
After the device in the 1830s. stone embankment, it was named after the Church of Sophia located here, it was named Sophia.
In March 1862, Archpriest A. Nechaev and church warden S. G. Kotov turned to Moscow Metropolitan Philaret with a request to build a new bell tower, since the previous one was already quite dilapidated.
They asked to build a new bell tower along the line of the Sofia embankment with a passage gate with two-story outbuildings, one of which was to house a church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Recovery of the Lost.” The need for construction was also motivated by the need to continue worship in the event of flooding of the main temple in the spring with water.
Construction of the bell tower lasted six years, and was completed in 1868. The bell tower of the St. Sophia Church became the first high-rise structure built in the center of Moscow after the completion of external construction work on the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, completed in 1859.
The construction of the bell tower was only part of the plan, the author of which was Archpriest Alexander Nechaev and architect Nikolai Kozlovsky. A grandiose construction of the main building of the temple was also planned, corresponding in scale and architectural appearance to the bell tower building. If this project were implemented, the Sofia ensemble would undoubtedly become the most important architectural ensemble in Zamoskvorechye.
The design of the ensemble of the St. Sophia Bell Tower and the St. Sophia Temple was based on a certain range of ideas associated with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Like the Cathedral of Christ, the St. Sophia Church was supposed to be built in the Byzantine style. The very expression “Byzantine” emphasized the historical Orthodox roots of the Russian state. “The construction in the center of Moscow, commensurate with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Kremlin cathedrals, the Temple of Sophia of the Wisdom of God, named after the main temple of the Byzantine Empire, received a very relevant sound. It referred to the well-known concept of “Moscow - the third Rome,” recalling the age-oldness of Orthodoxy and the eternal goals of the Russian state, the liberation of Greece and the Slavic peoples enslaved by Turkey, as well as the main Orthodox shrine - the Church of Sophia of Constantinople.”
Moscow recognized itself not only as the successor of Rome and Byzantium, but also as a global stronghold of the Orthodox Church, which was consonant with the idea of Moscow as the House of the Mother of God. The main symbols of this complex composition were the Kremlin Cathedral Square with the Assumption Cathedral and Red Square with the Church of the Intercession on the Moat, which was the architectural icon of the City of God - Heavenly Jerusalem. Zamoskvorechye echoed the Kremlin in its own way and represented another part of the urban planning model of Moscow. The Sovereign's Garden was built in the image of the Garden of Gethsemane in the Holy Land. And the relatively modest Church of Hagia Sophia became both the most important symbol of the Mother of God and the image of the main Christian shrine of the Garden of Gethsemane - the Burial Den of the Mother of God. The burial place of the Mother of God is symbolically connected with the feast of Her Assumption, which is interpreted by the glorification of the Mother of God as the Queen of Heaven, and the St. Sophia Church embodies precisely this idea, precisely this image of the Mother of God, echoing the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral.
The construction of the bell tower took place during the period following the defeat in the Crimean War, which led to a sharp weakening of Russia's position. Under these conditions, the construction of the Sofia ensemble is presented as a material expression of prayer for future victories and confidence in regaining former power. The geographical location of the St. Sophia Temple gave additional meaning to this theme. If the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, located to the west of the Kremlin, was a monument in the fight against Western invasion, then the position of the St. Sophia Church to the south of the Kremlin geographically coincided with the direction to the Black Sea.
Unfortunately, the grandiose plans did not correspond to the small size of the site, which was very elongated in length between the Moscow River and the bypass canal. The commission found that the building would not fit into the narrow plot, and the possibilities for expanding the plot had been exhausted. As a result, it was decided to abandon the construction of a new temple. As a result, the dimensions of the bell tower came into conflict with the dimensions of the temple itself.
On April 14, 1908, the temple experienced a severe flood, during which enormous damage was caused to the church property and building, estimated at more than 10,000 rubles. On this day, the water in the Moscow River rose by almost 10 meters.
In the Temple of Sophia, water flooded the interior to a height of about 1 meter. Iconostases in the main church and chapels were damaged, cabinets in the sacristy were overturned and vestments were soiled. On the main altar, the silver ark with the holy gifts was demolished to the floor.
The next year after the flood, an extensive complex of repair and restoration work was carried out in the temple.
Little is known about the fate of the temple for the first time after the revolution. In 1918, the new government confiscated the total capital of the temple, which amounted to 27,000 rubles.
In 1922, a campaign was announced to confiscate church valuables for the benefit of the starving.
Regarding the excesses that arose during the confiscation, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon wrote: “And therefore our hearts were filled with grief when news reached our ears about the massacres and bloodshed that took place in other places during the confiscation of church things. Believers have the legal right to make demands from the authorities so that there is no insult, much less desecration of their religious feelings, so that vessels, like sacred objects during Holy Communion, which according to the canons cannot have non-sacred uses, are subject to ransom and replacement with equivalent ones materials so that representatives from the believers themselves are involved in monitoring the correct expenditure of church values specifically to help the hungry. And then, if all this is observed, there will be no place for any anger, enmity and malice from believers.”
The seized property was mainly described by weight. Twenty silver vestments alone were taken. Of particular value was the golden chasuble, decorated with two diamonds.
The most famous icon located in the temple and described in several pre-revolutionary scientific works was the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, painted in 1697 by priest Ioann Mikhailov. During the liquidation of the temple in 1932, all church property was confiscated. The icon of the Vladimir Mother of God was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery, where it is still kept.
The revolution stopped church life in the church for a long time, but its last years before its closure were illuminated as if by a bright radiance in the approaching night, the flowering of spiritual life that resisted godlessness.
One of the outstanding people associated with the Church of Sophia of the Wisdom of God was Metropolitan of the Urals Tikhon (Obolensky).
The clergy register for 1915 contains the first mention of Archbishop Tikhon of Uralsky’s rapprochement with the St. Sophia Church: “in recent times, His Eminence Tikhon of Uralsky has been visiting the temple very often, almost every Sunday and holiday.”
As Bishop of the Urals and Nikolaev, Bishop Tikhon took part in the Council of 1917-1918. And since 1922, due to the impossibility of managing his diocese (he was deprived of the right to leave), Bishop Tikhon lived in Moscow and was close to Patriarch Tikhon. In 1923, he joined the Holy Synod under His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon.
In February 1925, not long before his death, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon served the liturgy in the St. Sophia Church.
On April 12, 1925, Metropolitan Tikhon was one of the signatories of the act of transferring the highest church power to Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) of Krutitsa, and on April 14, 1925, Metropolitan Tikhon, together with Metropolitan Peter Polyansky, paid a visit to the Izvestia newspaper to transfer the will of Patriarch Tikhon for publication .
Metropolitan Tikhon died in May 1926 and was buried in the Church of Sophia the Wisdom of God.
In 1923, at the recommendation of Tikhon of the Urals, his cell attendant, a young priest, Father Alexander Andreev, was appointed rector of the St. Sophia Church. Thanks to his outstanding personal qualities, the St. Sophia Church became one of the centers of spiritual life in Moscow.
On September 14, 1923, the administrator of the Moscow diocese, Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), instructed Fr. Alexander Andreev "temporary performance of pastoral duties at the Moscow Church of St. Sophia, in Sredniye Naberezhnye Sadovniki - until his election as a parish." This election took place a little later, and from then on the further service of Fr. Alexandra is inextricably linked with the Sofia parish.
In the new place, the preaching and organizational talent of Fr. Alexandra turned around to his full width.
A sisterhood was born here. The sisterhood included about thirty women who were not ordained monks, but were deeply religious; folk singing was established in the church. The purpose of creating the sisterhood was to help the poor and beggars, as well as work on the temple to maintain its decoration and church splendor. There was no official written charter for the sisterhood. The life of the sisters as prescribed by Fr. Alexandra was built on three foundations: prayer, poverty and works of mercy. One of the first obediences of the sisters was to provide hot meals for numerous beggars. On Sundays and holidays, dinners were held in the church dining room at the expense of parishioners and the sisterhood, which brought together from forty to eighty needy people. Before dinners Fr. Alexander always served a prayer service, and at the end, as a rule, he delivered a sermon, calling for a truly Christian way of life. The sisters never collected monetary donations for dinners, since the parishioners, seeing the high, noble goal of their activities, made donations themselves.
Father Alexander arranged living quarters for the sisters.
In 1924-1925 Father Alexander undertook an extensive range of work to renovate and rebuild the temple.
The main iconostasis and the iconostasis of the St. Nicholas chapel were moved from the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on Stary Simonovo and were installed in the St. Sophia Church.
At the same time, at the end of 1928, Father Alexander invited the famous church artist Count Vladimir Alekseevich Komarovsky to paint the temple. V. A. Komarovsky was not only an icon painter, but also an outstanding theorist of icon painting, one of the founders of the Russian Icon society and a member of the editorial board of the collection of the same name. He was concerned with cultivating good taste and understanding in the matter of iconographic decoration of churches.
Komarovsky worked on the paintings all day, and sometimes at night. I rested right there, in the small sacristy of the temple, located under the bell tower.
In the Church of Sophia, Komarovsky depicted the plot “Every creature rejoices in You” above the middle arch, and on the pillars under the arch, angels in the style of Andrei Rublev. The plaster in the refectory was all knocked down and replaced with new one. The priest himself worked all day long, often even sleeping on the scaffolding.
Finally, the repairs were completed - although, unfortunately, not everything was accomplished as planned. Divine services during the renovation, however, were not interrupted in the temple. And, most amazingly, a strong, continuous connection was constantly felt between the altar and the worshipers.
March 25, 1929 Fr. Alexander was arrested and prosecuted under Art. 58 clause 10 for the fact that “being a minister of a religious cult, he conducted anti-Soviet agitation among the believing masses, organizing and supporting the existence of an illegal sisterhood.” In addition, he was accused of “praying for those killed and in prison openly in front of everyone from the pulpit and delivering sermons of religious content.” He was also charged with the fact that the sisterhood collected money and other donations “to help clergy and members of church councils in exile and prison.”
On May 10, 1929, priest Alexander Andreev was sentenced to three years of exile to Kazakhstan. From 1929 to 1932 he lived as an expelled settler in the city of Karkaralinsk, Semipalatinsk region.
Since at the end of the link Fr. Alexander was deprived of the right to reside in Moscow and some other large cities, then he arrived in Ryazan. Father Alexander Andreev was arrested on January 14, 1936 and was kept in custody in the Taganskaya prison in Moscow.
By a special meeting of the NKVD of the USSR on April 4, 1936, Archpriest Alexander Aleksandrovich Andreev was sentenced to five years in a concentration camp “for participation in a counter-revolutionary group.”
The Presidium of the Moscow Regional Executive Committee issued the next decree on the closure of the temple for the use of a club at the nearby Red Torch factory in December 1931.
A real drama unfolded around the fate of the temple, the background of which, unfortunately, is not known. At its meeting on February 19, 1932, the Commission on Cults under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee again canceled this decision, deciding to leave the church for the use of believers.
However, on June 16, 1932, the Commission again returned to this issue and approved the decision of the Presidium to liquidate the church “subject to the provision of the Red Torch plant to the Regional Executive Committee with a re-equipment plan, information on the availability of funds and construction materials.” A month later, this decision of the Commission was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and the St. Sophia Church shared the sad fate of many Moscow churches. Crosses were removed from the church, interior decorations and bells were removed, and the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery. No information about the further fate of the temple decoration is known.
After the club of the Red Torch plant, the temple premises were converted into housing in mid-1940 and separated by interfloor ceilings and partitions.
Inside the temple there was a thermomechanical processing laboratory of the Institute of Steel and Alloys. In the 1960-1980s, the trust for underwater technical and construction works “Soyuzpodvodgazstroy” was located in the bell tower.
In 1960, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, the temple buildings and bell tower were placed under protection as architectural monuments.
In 1965 M.L. Epiphany wrote: “The church has a shabby, dirty appearance. The plaster had collapsed in places, some bricks had fallen out, and the door in the altar was broken. The crosses were broken and TV antennas were attached in their place. Residential apartments inside. The bell tower was restored in the 1960s.”
In 1972, a study of the temple's paintings was carried out. In 1974, restoration work began.
The paintings themselves, covered with layers of whitewash, were considered lost for many years. But at the beginning of 2000, restorers managed to clear away the paintings on the vault and several fragments on the walls, and a truly beautiful picture was revealed to them.
The expert’s conclusion, made at the request of the current rector of the church, Archpriest Vladimir Volgin, and the church parishioners, states: “The surviving fragments of the church’s paintings should be considered as a unique monument of Russian church art of the 20th century and as a relic of the Church worthy of special worship.”
In 1992, the church building and bell tower, by order of the Moscow Government, were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. The extremely difficult condition of the resulting buildings did not allow worship to be resumed immediately. Only in December 1994 did services begin in the bell church of the “Recovery of the Dead.”
On April 11, 2004, on Easter, a Liturgy was held within the walls of the Church of Sophia the Wisdom of God - the first since those dark times of desolation.
In 2013, the restoration of the appearance of the bell tower building "Recovery of the Dead" was carried out by the organization RSK Vozrozhdenie LLC.
Currently, restoration work is being carried out inside the bell tower. Divine services there have been suspended until restoration work is completed.
A separate three-tiered hipped bell tower was built in the 1860s according to the design of architect N.I. Kozlovsky. The lower floor of the monumental first tier in the center has a through passage to the church yard, on the second there is a temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “recovery of the lost.” The second tier is a quadrangle. The third tier, the figure of eight, houses the bells. it is crowned with a tent with a dome and a cross. The bell tower, built in the Russian-Byzantine style, rivaled in height the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, completed in 1859.
Without in any way echoing the building of the Church of Sophia of the Wisdom of God itself, it is in harmony with the verticals of the Kremlin towers and the bell tower of Ivan the Great, located on the other bank of the Moscow River. And this is no coincidence - the bell tower was supposed to become part of the “Sofia ensemble”, which would include a new temple building corresponding in scale and architectural appearance. The idea of erecting in the center of Moscow, opposite the Kremlin, a temple complex commensurate with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Kremlin cathedrals, named after the main shrine of the Byzantine Empire - Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, referred to the well-known concept of "Moscow - the Third Rome" and emphasized the importance of the Mother See as a global stronghold of Orthodoxy. The grandiose plans were not destined to come true: the architectural commission determined that the temple building would not fit into the narrow plot of land stretched between the river and the bypass canal.
Construction of the bell tower lasted from 1862 to 1868, and occurred in the period following the defeat in the Crimean War and the sharp weakening of Russia's position. It can hardly be considered a mere coincidence that the gate church was dedicated specifically to the icon of the Mother of God “Seeking the Lost.” in 1908, when during a flood the water in the Moscow River rose by almost 10 meters, the bell tower was badly damaged.
The temple was closed in 1930. Since 1960, the bell tower building has been under state protection; since 1973, it has been a cultural heritage site of republican (currently federal) significance. Nevertheless, for almost 20 years (from 1973 to 1992) it housed the Soyuzpodvodgazstroy trust for underwater technical and construction works. In 1992, the temple, and in 1994, the bell tower were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. The throne of the gate church of the icon of the Mother of God "Seeking the Lost" was consecrated in 1995.
The bell tower was restored in 1960, then restoration work was carried out in the late 70s - early 80s. In 1998, on the initiative of the church community, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, artist-restorer of the first category D.V. Vitoshnov conducted primary research work on wall painting in the interiors of the bell tower. While doing a test cleaning of fragments of paintings in the gate church, restorers removed five layers of paint. At the same time, in the late 1990s, work began on restoring the bells of the belfry. But there were not enough funds from the parish to carry out complex restoration work.
In 2010, the Moscow Government decided to carry out a full-scale restoration of the bell tower. At this point, the preservation of the object was satisfactory, but reconstruction and restoration required the foundation, plinth, floors, roofing, carpentry, and engineering systems of the building. In addition to strengthening the foundations and load-bearing structures, restoring facades, installing engineering systems, installing a new gilded cross that exactly matches the surviving historical drawings, and bells, work was also carried out in the interior. The cast iron staircase was restored. In the interior, the floors were recreated and the surfaces of the vaults were restored. As part of the stage of restoring the interior decoration of the bell tower, conservation and restoration of the stucco gilded decor of the vaults and walls was carried out.
In 2013, the bell tower became a laureate of the Moscow government competition for the best project in the field of preservation and popularization of cultural heritage objects “Moscow Restoration 2013” in the category: “For high quality of repair and restoration work.”
In old Moscow there were two churches consecrated in the name of St. Sophia the Wisdom of God. Both have miraculously survived to this day and are operating again. One of them is located in Zamoskvorechye, the other is in the center of Moscow, on Pushechnaya Street, but both were associated with the Novgorod campaigns of Ivan III. And if the temple on Pushechnaya was founded by the Novgorodians themselves, settlers from Veliky Novgorod, which was conquered by Moscow, then the unique Zamoskvorechnaya temple was erected by Muscovites in honor of their victory over Novgorod. It was he who was destined to play a key role in the urban planning of Orthodox Moscow-Third Rome.The patronal feast is dedicated to the image of Hagia Sophia, the Wisdom of God (from ancient Greek Sophia means Wisdom). The Wisdom of God is the embodiment of the Divine Plan, which foresaw the Fall of man, about the Economy and salvation of the human race through Christ - God the Logos and the Most Pure Mother of God, through whom He was incarnated. That is why this holiday is associated with the Mother of God.
The Icon of Sophia of the Kyiv version, that is, the image from the St. Sophia Church in Kyiv, is honored on September 21, the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. And on August 28, the image of Sophia from the Novgorod version is celebrated - from the Church of St. Sophia in Veliky Novgorod. The celebration of this image on the day of the Assumption glorifies the incarnate Wisdom of God through the full implementation of the Divine Plan, when the Mother of God is glorified as the Queen of Heaven, the Intercessor of the human race before the Heavenly Throne of Her Divine Son. So the feast of Sophia became the triumph of the Most Holy Theotokos.
The icon of Hagia Sophia, expressing the complex image of the Wisdom of God, is executed in fiery tones. In the center of the composition of the icon from the Novgorod version, the Lord Almighty is depicted in a fiery image, in a royal crown and vestments and with fiery wings, sitting on a golden throne that supports seven pillars (“Wisdom created for herself a house and established seven pillars”). Around Him is a starry sky, and on either side of the Lord stand the closest witnesses to the incarnation of the Son of God - the Mother of God in a purple robe with an icon of the Lord Christ and John the Baptist. The main idea of the icon is to present the embodied Wisdom in Her eternal Plan: in the image of Christ the Logos and the Mother of God, through Whom the Divine Plan for the salvation of the world and the human race was embodied. The Mother of God is also presented here as the Queen of the Church, which was founded by the Lord and outside of which, according to Divine Providence, it is impossible to achieve salvation.
Moscow, which conceived itself as the House of the Mother of God, could not help but have its own St. Sophia Church.
In the Moscow St. Sophia churches, the patronal holiday was celebrated according to the Novgorod version, on August 28, since both of these churches were associated with the Novgorod campaigns of Ivan III. However, if the temple on Pushechnaya was an ordinary parish church for Novgorodians resettled in Moscow, who built it in memory of their native city, then the fate of the Zamoskvorechskaya Sophia Church was influenced by the area in which it was founded. Its connection with the Novgorod campaigns of the Moscow prince is indicated by the dedication itself: the Church of Hagia Sophia was the main cathedral of Veliky Novgorod, which was conquered by Moscow under Ivan III. The first wooden church, founded at the end of the 15th century, according to scientists, was located a little further from the place where the stone St. Sophia Church now stands - closer to the House on the Embankment. It was first mentioned in chronicles in 1493.
| Temple of Sophia the Wisdom of God in Zamoskvorechye. |
Zarechensky Gardeners became one of the first local palace settlements. This area was generally densely populated by the sovereign's settlements, especially after the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who settled the archers here. Kadashis, royal weavers, moneymen, interpreters, tanners, and blacksmiths lived here, and they all built parish churches - like the gardeners, who had the Church of St. Sophia as their suburban temple. However, at first the sovereign’s gardeners did not live on the territory of the garden, but closer to the Ustinsky Bridge, where Sadovnicheskaya Street remained in memory of them. Only in the 17th century did gardeners settle in the immediate area of the garden itself and in 1682 they built a new stone St. Sophia Church. Not long before, Archpriest Avvakum himself preached in the old church, and “he excommunicated many parishioners with his teaching.” As a result of this “desolation of churches,” he was exiled from Moscow.
As already mentioned, this St. Sophia Church was by no means just a parish church, but had a special, exclusive role in the urban planning concept of Moscow as the Third Rome, becoming a definite symbolic center of Zamoskvorechye. Tsaritsyn Meadow - the Great Sovereign's Garden with the Church of Sophia the Wisdom of God, was a symbol of the Garden of Gethsemane and a collective image of Paradise. Hence another name came - Tsaritsyn Meadow, symbolizing the dedication of the garden with the St. Sophia Church to the Most Holy Theotokos - the Queen of Heaven. This was also the embodiment of the idea of Moscow as the House of the Mother of God: the dedication of the Russian capital to Her and the prayerful entrustment of Moscow under the shadow of the Queen of Heaven. (There is a version of scientists that such an understanding of Moscow could finally take shape just after the resettlement of the conquered Novgorodians, who called Novgorod the House of Hagia Sophia). This is evidenced by the dedication to the Mother of God of the main cathedral of Moscow - the Assumption Cathedral. By the way, since his patronal feast day coincided with the feast of St. Sophia, the people significantly called the Assumption Cathedral St. Sophia. It was indeed the prototype of the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, in commemoration of Russia's succession to the Byzantine Empire and its inheritance of the status of the ancient Russian capitals, Kyiv and Vladimir.
The main urban planning composition of the Third Rome unfolded on the left bank of the Moscow River. God-protected Moscow recognized itself not only as the successor of Rome and Byzantium, but also as a global stronghold of the Orthodox Church, which was consonant with the idea of Moscow as the House of the Mother of God. The main symbols of this complex composition were the Kremlin Cathedral Square with the Assumption Cathedral and Red Square with the Church of the Intercession on the Moat, which was the architectural icon of the City of God - Heavenly Jerusalem. The understanding of Moscow as the Third Rome, the custodian of Orthodoxy and the heir of two great world powers, led, firstly, to the organization of the city in the image of the Heavenly City and, secondly, to the reproduction in its urban planning model of the main symbols of not only the two holy cities, Rome and Constantinople , but also Jerusalem, the capital of the Holy Land and its monuments associated with the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ. Like, for example, the Golden Gate, symbolically reproduced in the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin and the Execution Place on Red Square, the symbol of Golgotha. (You can read this in detail in the wonderful book by M.P. Kudryavtsev “Moscow - the Third Rome”, which represents a unique study of Orthodox urban planning of the medieval capital).
Zamoskvorechye echoed the Kremlin in its own way and represented another part of the urban planning model of Moscow. The Sovereign's Garden was built in the image of the Garden of Gethsemane in the Holy Land. And the relatively modest Church of Hagia Sophia became both the most important symbol of the Mother of God and the image of the main Christian shrine of the Garden of Gethsemane - the Burial Den of the Mother of God. The burial place of the Mother of God is symbolically connected with the feast of Her Assumption, which is interpreted by the glorification of the Mother of God as the Queen of Heaven, and the St. Sophia Church embodies precisely this idea, precisely this image of the Mother of God, echoing the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral.
The only difference is that in Jerusalem the Garden of Gethsemane is located east of the city walls, and in Moscow its image, also separated by a river, is oriented south of the Kremlin. The completion of this symbolic The city-planning composition was the tented Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye, which is considered a symbol of the octagonal chapel on the Mount of Olives, on the site of the Ascension of the Lord. It is far from the Kremlin walls, but is clearly visible from it.
The Zamoskvorechsky Garden with the St. Sophia Church also carried another great image. In Christianity, flowering is a symbol of the Divine nature, forever blooming, and in ancient times city gardens were considered valuable. In Rus', the garden was called Paradise, in the understanding of this Christian truth, and the Moscow Sovereign's Garden was a symbol of Heavenly Paradise, the Garden of Eden, and the Moscow River was an image of the River of Life in the City of God, described in the Revelation of John the Theologian. “And he showed me a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of its street, and on both sides of the river, is the tree of life, bearing fruit twelve times, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations.”
Indeed, on both sides on both banks of the Moscow River in the center of the city there were gardens: in the Kremlin there were magnificent terraced gardens going down the slope of Borovitsky Hill to the river, and opposite on the other bank was Tsaritsyn Meadow. According to M.P. Kudryavtsev, the Sovereign's garden had fruit trees, likened to the biblical Tree of Life, and fountains, of which there were exactly 144, according to the symbolic height of the walls of Heavenly Jerusalem (144 cubits), and according to the number of the chosen ones (144 thousand righteous people) recorded in the Book Life with Christ. All this represented him as a prototype of the Garden of Eden, and through the St. Sophia Church - as an image of Christ and the Mother of God who dwelt in it. Tsaritsyn Meadow is also considered a symbol of dedication to the Mother of God of all Moscow, and with her the Russian land.
At the beginning of Peter the Great's era, only the Sophia Church remained from the Sovereign's Garden - it burned down in the fire of 1701 and was never rebuilt. The era of manufactories and factories came to Zamoskvorechye; the first creation of Peter the Great was the Cloth Yard near the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, where cloth was produced for the army. The Petrine character of the development of the area was affected by the proximity of the river, necessary for early factory production, so the Zarechensk territory was valued, as they say, worth its weight in gold and was given over to the sovereign's industrial needs. The parishioners of the church were ordinary people, merchants, officers, officials, townspeople and other small audiences who lived at that time on the Sofiyskaya embankment. And since 1752, in her parish there was a house of the industrialist of the famous dynasty Nikita Nikitich Demidov. In St. Petersburg, Anna Ioannovna granted him a house on the English Embankment, which was adequate in terms of the degree of honor. In the same 18th century, chapels of the St. Sophia Church appeared: in 1722 in the name of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called and in 1757 in the name of St. Demetrius of Rostov, later abolished. The temple was still being rebuilt after 1784, and at the very end of the 19th century a chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker appeared at the new refectory.
In 1812, all the wooden buildings on the Sofia embankment burned down and were gradually replaced by stone ones. The 19th century seemed to breathe new life into this Zamoskvorechsk area. In the 1836-1840s, the first stone embankment appeared, and it was built by the same engineers N.I. Yanish and A.I. Delvig, who were engaged in the construction of the Moscow water supply and city fountains. In the 1860s, the Kokorevsky farmstead appeared here: the largest hotel at that time and at the same time trading warehouses were located in one building. The courtyard was built by the famous Moscow businessman Vasily Kokorev for merchants who stored their goods in warehouses, settled in “rooms” where they usually concluded deals, and went to the St. Sophia Church to pray for good luck in business. Nearby stood the Bakhrushin charity house of free apartments for poor widows with children and female students.
The St. Sophia Church was transformed, embellished, and renewed. In 1862-1868 Along the red line of the embankment, the architect N.I. Kozlovsky (author of the Church of All Sorrows at the Kalitnikovsky cemetery) built a new hipped bell tower in the Russian-Byzantine style, which became an architectural landmark and a symbol of the St. Sophia Church, fenced off by houses. The bell tower was stylized as antique, namely the 17th century, the time of construction of the stone church. In the bell tower, the gate chapel church was consecrated in the name of the icon of the Mother of God “Seeking the Lost.” Then the sugar factory Kharitonenko gave funds for it, since his daughter, who suffered from a leg disease, was miraculously healed from the miraculous image. Another Kharitonenko, tycoon and millionaire Pavel Ivanovich, at the end of the 19th century, built a magnificent mansion nearby with a magnificent view of the Kremlin, from where, according to legend, all the domes of the Kremlin churches were visible. Henri Matisse himself painted a panorama of the Kremlin from his window. After the revolution, the house was transferred to the English embassy.
The revolution stopped church life in the church for a long time, but its last years before its closure were illuminated as if by a bright radiance in the approaching night, the flowering of spiritual life that resisted godlessness. In February 1925, shortly before his death, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon served liturgy here. A year earlier, by decree of the saint, Archpriest Alexander Andreev, a very young priest, canonized at the Jubilee Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000, was appointed rector of the St. Sophia Church. Previously, he served in the neighboring Church of the Resurrection in Kadashi, where he took the experience of sisterhood and transferred it to the Sophia Church. The sisters, who became about 30 deeply religious parishioners without taking monasticism, were engaged in charity work, helping the poor, working to improve the church, and organizing free lunches for the poor and orphans. Up to 80 people gathered for these dinners, held on Sundays and major church holidays at the expense of parishioners and sisters. The abbot served a prayer service, and at the end of the meal he delivered a sermon, calling for a Christian lifestyle. He also began the repair of the temple with the help of the parish, brought a magnificent gilded iconostasis from the closed Simonov Monastery and acquired a valuable library from some merchant from Optina Hermitage, which saved it - the merchant tore out sheets from the books to wrap his goods.
All this, especially the sisterhood, dinners and sermons, was considered by the authorities to be anti-Soviet agitation. In 1929, the rector was arrested and convicted of organizing and supporting an “illegal sisterhood,” for openly praying for those killed and in prison and delivering sermons of “religious content,” as well as for collecting donations to help priests in exile and in custody. He was sentenced to exile in Kazakhstan. After the abbot was exiled, the temple itself was closed. It was occupied by the Union of Atheists. The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery, and other images, in all likelihood, to the Church of the Robe on Donskaya Street. The library disappeared without a trace. Father Alexander, returning from exile, served in Ryazan, since he was prohibited from living in Moscow. After a second arrest for “participation in a counter-revolutionary group,” he was shot in the camp on November 4, 1937.
The temple was given over to living quarters, a door was broken into the altar, and television antennas were installed instead of crosses. The bell tower, facing the front line of the embankment, was restored in the 1960s. And the temple itself began to be restored only in 1976, the kokoshniks and five-domes were restored, although the interior premises were occupied by institutions for a long time.
Only in 1994 was the gate temple in the bell tower returned to the Church, in the name of the icon of the Recovery of the Dead. But life returned to the St. Sophia Church only 10 years later. On Easter, April 11, 2004, a Liturgy was held within its walls - the first since those dark times of desolation. And in October of the same year, the funeral service was held for the writer Viktor Rozov, the famous playwright - the film “The Cranes Are Flying” was based on his most famous work.
The second St. Sophia Church on Pushechnaya Street was also recently returned to the Church. After the revolution, it was transferred to the needs of the NKVD-KGB, because the temple is closely adjacent to a departmental building and was used as a warehouse. Only in August 2001 was it restored with the assistance of the FSB and donations from many of its employees. In March 2002, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II consecrated it in the presence of FSB director Nikolai Patrushev. It contains an icon of the blessed Matrona and a rare image of St. Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, recently canonized.
How to get to the Church of St. Sophia of the Wisdom of God in Sadovniki: Art. metro station Borovitskaya, Kropotkinskaya.
There are two Sofia churches in Moscow: one on Pushechnaya Street, and the second in Zamoskvorechye, on the Sofia Embankment opposite the Kremlin. Both temples are associated with the history of the conquest of Veliky Novgorod. The church on Pushechnaya was built by the Novgorodians themselves, and the one located on the embankment was built by Muscovites, in honor of the victory over Novgorod. Translated from ancient Greek, Sophia means wisdom, and the day of St. Sophia, the Wisdom of God, is considered the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In both Moscow Sophia churches, the patronal feast was celebrated on August 28, as in Novgorod, but if the temple on Pushechnaya was the usual parish church for resettled Novgorodians, the Sophia Church in Zamoskvorechye played a more important role. In Veliky Novgorod, which was conquered by Moscow under Ivan III, the Church of St. Sophia was the main cathedral of the city. The very first wooden St. Sophia Church in Zamoskvorechye appeared at the end of the 15th century, and it was presumably located somewhat closer to the House on the Embankment. The first mention of it is contained in the chronicle of 1493.
At that time, Zamoskvorechye was called Zarechye, and the road to the Golden Horde lay through it. River floods regularly flooded the coastal area, so only the poorest people settled here. Crossing the river was carried out via a floating bridge or by boat. In 1493, another severe fire destroyed the entire settlement (a place near the eastern wall of the Kremlin). In the burned area, a square was formed, today known as Red, but at first it was called: Fire. It was forbidden to settle on it to avoid fires. The construction ban also extended to the territory of Zarechye, located opposite the Kremlin.
On the cleared territory in 1495, a new Sovereign Garden was laid out, which was called Tsaritsyn Meadow. Later, this area began to be called Sadovniki - after the settlement of gardeners who settled nearby. In the 17th century, gardeners began to settle on the territory of the garden itself, and in 1682 they built a new stone St. Sophia Church.
In 1701, the Sovereign's Garden burned down, but the St. Sophia Church survived. In 1722, a chapel appeared at the St. Sophia Church in the name of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called, and in 1757 - in the name of St. Dmitry of Rostov (later abolished). The church was rebuilt again in 1784, and at the end of the 19th century, a chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker appeared next to the new refectory.
During the fire of 1812, all the wooden buildings located on the Sofia embankment burned down and were gradually replaced with stone ones. In 1836-1840, a stone embankment and the famous Kokorevskoe courtyard appeared in Zamoskvorechye. The courtyard was a building that housed a large hotel and warehouses. The merchants who stayed here often visited the St. Sophia Church, where they prayed for success in business. Nearby there was a charitable Bakhrushin house, in which apartments were rented out free of charge for female students and poor widows with children.
In 1862-1868, architect N.I. Kozlosovsky built a new tented bell tower in the Russian-Byzantine style along the red line of the embankment, which became a real decoration and pride of the St. Sophia Church. The temple building itself was covered with houses, and the bell tower was visible even from the opposite bank of the river. The bell tower was stylized in the 17th century; the gate chapel church in it was consecrated in the name of the icon of the Mother of God “Recovery of the Lost.” Sugar factory Kharitonenko donated funds for this church. And the second Kharitonenko, Pavel Ivanovich, at the end of the 19th century built a beautiful mansion next to the church with a view of the Kremlin. From the window of this house, the famous French artist Henri Matisse painted a panorama of the Kremlin. After the October Revolution, the building housed the British embassy.
After the revolution, the activities of the St. Sophia Church gradually ceased. Shortly before his death in 1925, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon served liturgy here. In 1924, the young Archpriest Alexander Andreev was appointed rector of this church (in 2000 he was canonized as one of the Holy New Martyrs of Russia). During his tenure, 30 sisters began charitable activities at the church. These were believing parishioners who, without becoming a monk, were engaged in the improvement of the temple, helped the poor and sick, and organized free lunches for orphans and the poor. The rector of the parish began repairing the church and transported a unique gilded iconostasis from the closed Simonov Monastery. He also bought from some merchant a library from Optina Pustyn, which could have been lost - the merchant used the book leaves as a wrapper for the goods.
Such vigorous activity was regarded by the new authorities as anti-Soviet agitation. The rector was arrested in 1929 and exiled to Kazakhstan. The St. Sophia Church was closed, and the Union of Atheists was located here. The valuable Vladimir icon was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery, the fate of the rest is not exactly known, perhaps they entered the Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskoy. A rare library has disappeared without a trace. After returning from exile, Father Alexander lived in Ryazan - he was forbidden to return to Moscow. The second time Alexander’s father was arrested “for participation in a counter-revolutionary group”, and in 1937 he was shot in the camp.
By that time, the church building had been transferred for use as housing. The door in the altar was broken down, and antennas were installed instead of crosses. In 1960, the bell tower was restored, and the church itself began to be put in order in 1976. In 1994, the church was given the gate temple, and in 2004, the St. Sophia Church. The first divine service, the Liturgy, was served here on Easter in April 2004, and in October the funeral service was held in the church for the writer Viktor Rozov, a playwright on whose play the film “The Cranes Are Flying” was based. And today, from afar, the slender, lace-like building of the Sofia Bell Tower, pale pink in color, attracts attention.
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