Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Church of John the Baptist, which is under the forest, with the clergy house Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Kolomenskoye

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Photo from the 1980s.

The Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo is one of those monuments of Moscow stone architecture of the 16th century, the history of which, despite the many years of interest of scientists, continues to be fraught with many mysteries and contradictions. Throughout almost the entire existence of our science, the temple has enjoyed the constant attention of researchers. This is explained by the fact that it occupies a special place in the concept of one of the lines of development of architecture of the 16th century, which was formed in the first works on the history of Moscow architecture, leading to the creation of the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat.

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Lithography. 1860s

View of the temple from the south. Photo from the beginning of the 20th century.

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Reconstruction by M.P. Kudryavtsev in the mid-16th century.

The unusualness of the church is not only in its fundamental nature and unique composition. A completely untypical decorative design in the form of barrel turrets encircling the central drum.

Fragments of the original painting on the domed vault of the central pillar. Photo from the 1960s.
Fragments of the original painting were cleared in 1962 - an image of a circle with spirals of bricks, painted in red. Its meaning has not yet been revealed. Another one of the mysteries.

Belfry. Photo from the 1980s.

I visited there several times as a child. The temple was open and completely dirty.
Before the Olympics, the temple was closed, but at the same time the cemetery surrounding the temple was destroyed. Limestone tombstones from the 17th - 19th centuries were destroyed. A stream that flowed nearby was taken into a pipe. And finally, the village of Dyakovo was completely demolished.
They improved the territory, so to speak...
At the same time, the unique village of Zhuzha, located nearby, was also demolished. Wooden houses, many of which were guarded, were destroyed. The owners were forcibly relocated to apartment buildings. In hindsight we realized that it was impossible to do this, but...
Sometimes I just don’t understand what drives such “active” freaks. Sometimes the Stalinist Criminal Code comes to mind - Article 58-7 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (sabotage)... up to the highest measure of social protection... Only it was applied, alas, to the wrong people...

View of the temple from the west. 1990

According to chronicles, in the first half of the 14th century, Metropolitan Peter received from the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Kalita for his court in the Kremlin a place north of the Assumption Cathedral.

In 1450, Metropolitan Jonah erected a stone Church of the Deposition of the Robe and the first stone chamber in the Kremlin on this site. During the Moscow fire of 1473, the courtyard burned down, and Metropolitan Gerontius had to rebuild it. In 1484–1485, Pskov craftsmen built a new Church of the Deposition of the Robe for him, which still stands today. All subsequent metropolitans, and from the end of the 16th century, patriarchs, established their possessions in the Kremlin and erected wooden and stone structures.

During the Polish-Lithuanian intervention and the fire of 1626, the Patriarchal Courtyard burned. Patriarch Filaret restored the Cross and Dining Chambers, cut down wooden cells and churches.

In 1643, a new stage of construction work began, associated with the name of Patriarch Joseph. The Cross, Golden, Cell and Treasury chambers, as well as a number of utility rooms, were erected under one roof. Antipa Konstantinov, one of the builders of the Terem Palace, supervised the work.

The next stage in the life of the patriarchal court in the Kremlin is associated with the name of Patriarch Nikon. In the fall of 1652, the dismantling of the old chambers, the Church of the Solovetsky Wonderworkers and buildings in the former courtyard of Boris Godunov, which Nikon received as a gift from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, began. By the end of 1655, new chambers and a church were built, but for another three years, until Nikon left the Department in July 1658, the finishing of the premises continued. The first floor of the palace was used for household needs and placing orders, the second floor housed the state halls and the house church, and the third floor housed the patriarch’s personal chambers.

Subsequent patriarchs, to one degree or another, also completed, decorated and rebuilt the palace.

In 1721, after the abolition of the patriarchate and the establishment of the Holy Synod, his Moscow office was located in the building of the chambers. This entailed significant changes in the layout, decoration of the chambers and their appearance.

In 1918, the Patriarchal Chambers, as a rare architectural monument of the 17th century, were transferred to the museum. A long process of scientific restoration began and the building, in its main features, was returned to its original appearance. In 1967, the first permanent exhibition was opened on the second floor of the Patriarchal Chambers.

In 1980–1985, further major scientific restoration work was carried out, the result of which was the modern exhibition of the museum.

In 2010, the museum's exhibition was slightly modified. During the renovation work in 2013, areas of 17th-century painting on the walls of the front entrance hall and executive chambers were uncovered.

One of the oldest Moscow churches that has survived to this day is the six-altar votive church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Kolomenskoye. According to many researchers, it is older than the famous Church of the Ascension and was founded in 1529 by order of the childless Vasily III near Kolomenskoye in the village of Dyakovo with a prayer for the granting of an heir to the throne to the Grand Duke.

Many facts support this version. The main altar is dedicated to John the Baptist, which indicates the sovereign’s desire to have an heir, the namesake ancestor of the Moscow princes, Ivan Kalita. The prayer for conception was expressed in the dedication of the side chapel to St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of the chapels is dedicated to the Apostle Thomas, who at first did not believe in the Resurrection of Christ, which symbolizes the sovereign’s awareness of the sinfulness of unbelief and doubt. The dedication of another chapel to St. Metropolitan Peter, the patron saint of the Kalita family, expresses a prayer for the sending of a miracle. Another throne was consecrated in honor of the saints Tsar Constantine the Great and his mother Elena, which indicates an appeal to the heavenly patroness Elena Glinskaya.

This temple was also the forerunner of St. Basil's Cathedral - both in its architectural form and in its interior decoration: a flame-shaped swastika is depicted on the inner surface of the head of the cathedral, as well as inside the head of the Intercession Tent. In ancient Russian churches, this sign of a flame-shaped spiral swastika in the 16th century sometimes replaces the image of Christ on the dome and symbolizes the spiritual opening of the human soul to heaven and the eternal movement towards God.

In honor of the birth of his son, Vasily III ordered the following year, 1531, to build the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Stary Vagankovo, (between Volkhonka and Znamenka), which was abolished long before the revolution.

And soon after the birth of the son of Vasily III - the future Ivan the Terrible - the Ivanovo Monastery appeared in Moscow on Kulishki. A beautiful view of its majestic towers opens from Starosadsky Lane. Its cathedral church was consecrated in the name of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and hence the Moscow name of the monastery: “Ivanovo Monastery, on Kulishki, near Bor.”

It was founded back in the 15th century, and perhaps dates back to the very first Moscow church built in the Kremlin in the name of the Nativity of John the Baptist (which stood on the site of the Grand Kremlin Palace) - hence the name “under the pine forest”.

And here, on a steep hill near Kulishki, later nicknamed Ivanovskaya Gorka, the monastery was probably founded by the mother of Ivan the Terrible, Elena Glinskaya, in honor of her son’s name day. Perhaps he himself did this when he ascended the Russian throne. Sometimes the founding of the monastery is attributed to Grand Duke John III, who laid out the magnificent Sovereign Gardens in this area, immortalized in the name of the nearby Starosadsky Lane. Around the same time, a slender white church appeared here in the name of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir in Old Gardens. One of the oldest in Moscow, it was built at the beginning of the 16th century by the Italian architect Aleviz Novy, the architect of the Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin. The order for this church and in this area was the highest.

The location for the monastery was very suitable for monastic life: the monastery was located in the center of the city, but in the silence of the narrow Moscow streets, where even random passers-by did not disturb the solitude of the nuns. And only once a year was it noisy, crowded and even fun.

In their free time from divine services, the nuns were engaged in spinning and winding wool, knitting woolen stockings, and spinning lace. On the monastery holiday of the Beheading of John the Baptist, August 29 according to the old style, or, in the common folk way, on the day of Ivan Lent, in the old days there was a “women’s” fair near the monastery, where they traded wool and threads. Peasant women from all over Moscow flocked to it.

According to one of the last decrees of Empress Elizabeth, the Ivanovo Monastery was intended to provide charity for widows and orphans of noble and honored people. And here, behind the impregnable monastery walls, women involved in criminal and political affairs were hidden under great secrecy. They were brought, sometimes under the guise of madmen, directly from the Detective Prikaz or the Secret Chancellery.

The wife of Vasily Shuisky, Queen Marya, who was forcibly tonsured a nun, was imprisoned here; the second wife of Ivan the Terrible's eldest son, Tsarevich Ivan, Pelagia, who died only in 1620. It is possible that it was here that Princess Augusta Tarakanova spent her last 15 years of life, hidden under the name of nun Dosifei. As you know, Tarakanova was considered the daughter of Elizaveta Petrovna and Count Razumovsky, and Catherine the Great saw in her a threat to her stay on the Russian throne.

The mysterious nun Dosithea languished in captivity in the Ivanovo Monastery since 1785. They brought her at night, in a carriage, wrapped in black, accompanied by mounted officers. A brick house was built for her next to the abbess’s home, and large transfers were received for her maintenance. She lived completely alone, they took her to church at night, and then the service was performed only for her alone, in a locked church. In 1810, Dosithea died at the age of 64, and she was buried with solemnity, unusual for a simple nun, in the Novospassky Monastery, the family tomb of the Romanovs. This only confirms the guesses about the highest origin of the nun. Although, according to another version, Princess Tarakanova was imprisoned in St. Petersburg, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she died of consumption.

Here, in a damp monastery crypt under the cathedral church, and then in a cramped cell, the “torturer and murderer” landowner Daria Saltykova, imprisoned here for life by decree of the same Catherine the Great, spent 33 years under guard. She sat for a long time in the earthen basement of the monastery, completely deprived of light. Several times a day, a specially appointed nun brought her food and a candle, which she took along with the dishes. The long imprisonment did not at all change the character of the former “cannibal” landowner: through the window bars she desperately scolded passers-by who came to look at the terrible Saltychikha.

She left her prison only in a coffin. In 1800, Daria Saltykova died at the age of 68 and was buried in the Donskoy Monastery cemetery.

During Napoleon's invasion, the Ivanovo Monastery was burned to the ground - so much so that it was even abolished. The former cathedral church became an ordinary parish church, and the monastic cells housed employees of the Synodal Printing House, located nearby on Nikolskaya Street. At the same time, the old cells were broken, including the one where Dosithea lived.

Only at the request of Metropolitan Philaret did Emperor Alexander II allow the Ivanovo Monastery to be restored again. In its modern form, it was built in 1861-1878 by the architect M.D. Bykovsky and consecrated in 1879. Meanwhile, already in 1877, on the territory of the monastery under construction, the only infirmary in Moscow for the wounded of the Russian-Turkish war was located.

The dark history of the monastery continued in the 20th century. Since 1918, the transit prison of the Cheka, and then the NKVD, was located here. The prisoners, having improved the moment, could occasionally throw a note out of the window, where they informed their relatives about themselves. They could only rely on random and conscientious passers-by...

On the steep and high bank of the Moscow River, on the territory, stands a beautiful monument of Russian architecture - the Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo.

In the 16th century, the royal residence was located in this place. The history of architectural monuments of this period contains many contradictions and mysteries, despite the ongoing interest of scientists and researchers.

Photo 1. Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo in Moscow

It is believed that the construction of the church commemorates the conception or birth of Tsar Ivan IV, the long-awaited heir to the throne. Due to the fact that Vasily III intended to give the heir the name of his grandfather Ivan III, it is dedicated to John the Baptist.

This temple is unusual and very interesting in its architecture. The symmetrical group consists of five octagonal pillars, isolated from each other. Four of them, one side adjacent to the central pillar, are connected by a common gallery. All this rests on a common foundation. The central tower is 34.5 meters high, the rest are 17 meters high. Each tower has its own entrance and separate altar.

Photo 2. The white stone church is located on the territory

Museum-Reserve "Kolomenskoye"

The main pillar is dedicated to the Beheading of John the Baptist. Its top is very interesting in architectural design.

The octagon rises above triangular kokoshniks in two rows, the tradition of erecting which dates back to Pskov architecture. Above it there is a volume composed of large half-cylinders, above which, in turn, there are smaller cylinders. This is followed by a tall drum, decorated with panels. All this ends with a helmet-shaped dome. The octagon of the main pillar has large round windows oriented to the cardinal points and cutting through the lower row of kokoshniks.

The tiers of the other four pillars are also decorated with panels. Three rows of triangular and semicircular kokoshniks lead to helmet-shaped domes. Above the center of the gallery there is a two-bay belfry.

The unity of decor, the connecting role of the galleries and the multi-tiered structure contribute to the perception of the temple of five octagons as a powerful monolithic composition with a central solution.

It is assumed that the authors of the church in Dyakovo were the architects Postnik and Barm. During the construction, tombstones dating from 1534-1535 were used. This fact gives us the right to believe that this unique ancient temple was built after 1535.

From 1924 to 1929 the church was closed. Then, from 1949 to 1957, services were held again. After that it was abandoned for many years. The interior decoration and paintings of the temple have not been preserved. In 1980, the cemetery at the church was also liquidated.

The new consecration of the church took place in 1992. Quite recently, a thorough restoration of this outstanding architectural monument of the 16th century was completed. Services in the temple are held regularly.

The Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo is located at: Moscow, Andropov Avenue, 39 (Kashirskaya and Kolomenskoye metro stations).

(Chernigovsky Lane, No. 2/4)

Opposite the apartment building I.F. In Neustadt there are two ancient churches at once - the Holy Great Martyrs Michael and Theodore of Chernigov and the Beheading of John the Baptist, which are connected to each other not only by location. The latter was consecrated in honor of the feast of the Beheading of the venerable head of St. John the Baptist. According to the Gospel, King Herod of Judah had a criminal relationship with his brother’s wife Herodias. John the Baptist denounced the tyrant and reproached him bitterly. Under the influence of Herodias, Herod imprisoned John. The Gospel goes on to say: “During the celebration of Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced in front of the congregation and pleased Herod, so he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. She, at the instigation of her mother, said: give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter. And the king was saddened, but, for the sake of the oath and those reclining with him, he ordered it to be given to her, and sent to cut off John’s head in prison. And they brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and she took it to her mother. His disciples came and took his body and buried it; and they went and told Jesus.”

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist near Bor

The day of the Beheading of John the Baptist was still revered by the disciples of John the Baptist. In Rus', on the day of his memory, all Orthodox soldiers were remembered, “who laid down their lives for the faith, the Fatherland and the people and conquered death by the power of the cross.” Midsummer's day was called "Ivan Lenten" because strict fasting was observed on it. There was even a proverb among the people: “If you don’t keep the Ivan Fast, your tail will be pinched in hell.”

The addition “under Bor” indicates that previously there was a rustling pine forest around the monastery and even on the hill where the ancient Moscow fortress was built. Similar additions are often found in the toponymy of Moscow churches: the Church of Elijah the Prophet, which is near Sosenki, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration on Bor, etc. Interestingly, by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1658, the Borovitskaya tower of the Kremlin was renamed Predtechenskaya in honor of the nearby church Nativity of John the Baptist near Bor. But the old name of the tower has been preserved and has survived to this day.

Here is what is said in the Simeonovskaya Chronicle: “In the summer of 6923 (1415), during the great fast, March the tenth was born to the Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich, a son, Vasily. She spoke about his birth: when that day came, on which he was born, his mother began to wear out, as if she were approaching death, but the prince in this greatness is in sorrow; At that time, a certain elder was holy in the monastery of St. John the Baptist near the pine forest beyond the Moscow River, we know that the great prince also sent an ambassador to him and pray for his princess, and he responded to the river sent to him: “Head of the great to the prince, let him pray to God and His Most Pure Mother and the great martyr Login the centurion, tribute“Be a helper from God to our entire family for all of them, and you demand good things, but don’t grieve about your princess, she will be healthy and give birth to you a son this evening, an heir for you,” and so it will be.”

Thanks to this chronicle story, we know that in Chernigovsky Lane already at the beginning of the 15th century there was an Ivanovo Monastery, near Bor. Since then, in this monastery they began to pray for a successful pregnancy and childbirth and ask God to bless the spouses with a peaceful, grace-filled birth of children. Although the monastery was located across the river - outside the city limits, it was always under the special patronage of the Moscow princes. There were two reasons for this: the location of the monastery at the intersection of leading trade roads and the miracle that happened at the birth of Vasily II. Until the end of the 14th century, there were no monasteries in Zamoskvorechye, so the appearance of the Ivanovo Monastery almost on the very road leading to the Horde, in the most unsafe part of the city, is quite surprising.

In 1514, the dilapidated wooden monastery church of the Beheading of John the Baptist was rebuilt in stone “by the special favor” of Prince Vasily III by the famous Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin the New (Alviso Lamberti da Montagnano). Most likely, this was the first stone temple in Zamoskvorechye. In 1530, Vasily III gave birth to a long-awaited heir - the future Tsar Ivan the Terrible. The prince decides to move such a revered monastery closer to the Kremlin and the sovereign's court - to Solyanka, on a hill that later received the name Ivanovskaya Gorka. The Ioanno-Predtechensky Monastery on Ivanovsky Lane still exists today. According to another version, the monastery was moved by order of the Glinsky princes and the wife of Vasily III, Elena Glinskaya. Still other sources attribute this act to Ivan the Terrible himself, who celebrated his namesake on the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist. In a word, in the 16th century the Ivanovo Monastery near Bor was abolished, and the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist became a parish church. In 1578, Tsar Ivan IV, Metropolitan Anthony of Moscow, the boyars and all the honest people met at the church the holy relics of Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and his faithful boyar Theodore, transferred from Chernigov in a religious procession. In memory of this, a wooden temple was built on the opposite side of the alley, consecrated in the name of the Chernigov miracle workers. We will stop near it again.

During the Time of Troubles and the struggle of Russian soldiers with Polish invaders, the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist was thoroughly damaged. In some documents of that time the church is mentioned as wooden. Perhaps, after the expulsion of the Poles, a temporary wooden church was erected near the destroyed temple. To this day, only the white stone basement and fragments of masonry in the apse have survived from the 16th century church. The current temple was built in 1658. In the 17th century, it was built in the form of an oblong “ship”: a quadrangle connected to the refectory and bell tower located on the same axis. In 1675, a team of masons, which was engaged in the construction of the stone temple of the Chernigov Wonderworkers, carried out a small alteration of the Church of St. John the Baptist.

In 1722, the northern chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was consecrated. In 1757, the dilapidated bell tower and refectory were demolished. In their place, at the expense of the merchants Fyodor Fedorovich and Kosma Maksimovich Zamyatnin, a new, somewhat elongated refectory with two chapels - Nikolsky and Kosmodamiansky (consecrated at the request of one of the donors) was erected. At the same time, construction began on the bell tower, located on the corner with Pyatnitskaya Street - to the east, and not to the west of the church, as was usually done. The quadrangle of the temple lost the St. Nicholas chapel and received a typical baroque design of the 18th century. In 1772, a new dome appeared on the main church and large windows were cut through, and in the 1780s the bell tower was completely completed and a fence was erected around the temple. At the end of the 18th century, a one-story stone almshouse was built facing Chernigovsky Lane.

In the 19th century, a porch and porch with a characteristic porch were built. In 1896 - 1904, under the leadership of the famous architect F.O. Shekhtel, design work and renovation of the temple were carried out. Paintings and a marble iconostasis appeared in the church. After the revolution of 1917, the church was closed and eventually fell into disrepair. M.L. Bogoyavlensky, a major expert on the history of Moscow churches, describes the appearance of the Church of John the Baptist in one of his albums in 1969: “The church is currently beheaded, the plaster has fallen off in places, the bell tower has been painted, there is no gilding. Inside is “Food Products Management. District Department of Commerce of the Sovetsky District."

In the late 1970s, in connection with the upcoming 1980 Olympic Games, restoration was carried out, as a result of which the dome, cross and facades of the church and part of the bell tower were restored. There were also irreparable losses: the walls of the temple were plastered and whitewashed. Since 1990, the demonstration and exhibition hall of the GIS “Art Glass” of the USSR Ministry of Construction Materials Industry has been located in the Church of John the Baptist. Only in 1997 did services resume in the church.

The Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist with its refectory, bell tower and church house form a complex with elements of different architectural styles. The temple itself has archaic features of the 17th century. It is decorated with platbands and a striking frieze of curb and runner. During the reconstruction of the church, the decor of that time was restored from the surviving fragments. The crowning cornice and the design of the southern portal have survived from the 17th century. The dome, above which the octagonal light drum rises, and the entire completion of the temple from the frieze appeared at the end of the 18th century. The stone church house (almshouse) is located exactly at the place where Chernigovsky Lane “bends at the knee.” In the 19th century, a second floor was added to it, but in general it retained the layout of the late 18th century.

The refectory, stretched along the red line of Chernigovsky Lane, is perceived as a separate building due to the many windows atypical for a church and the bell tower not in the traditional place. The facade of the refectory is decorated with a number of pilasters and window casings with “ears” and small pediments, typical of the Moscow Baroque. The false and real windows on the ground floor give it a special elegance. The fence from the refectory to the bell tower, restored in the 1980s in accordance with the ancient layout, is distinguished by curious round niches, stylized to resemble the Baroque design of the refectory. Inside the Church of John the Baptist you can also see a combination of different eras: fragments of ornamental painting from the 17th century and painting from the 19th century, unfortunately hidden under whitewash.

Nothing bad will happen if we go straight to Pyatnitskaya Street and admire the bell tower of the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist - the most significant part of the architectural ensemble. It was no coincidence that she was pushed so far. On Pyatnitskaya Street, the tallest buildings always faced the red line. To prevent the tall bell tower from receding deeper into the quarter, the architects were forced to violate one of the rules of church construction. The bell tower consists of three quadrangles decreasing towards the top. It is made in the style of mature classicism: the Doric order is used in the lower tier, the Ionic order in the middle, and the Corinthian order in the upper tier. The lower quadrangle, weighted with paired corner columns, seems to support the entire plastic structure of the bell tower. The middle tier is decorated with pilasters, pediments and windows with archivolts, repeating the arched openings of the lower quadrangle. The upper baroque tier of the bell is crowned with a faceted dome with an octagonal end with a dome and a spire. Thus, the bell tower combines both classicist and baroque features. For example, the vases decorating the parapet of the first tier are stylized as early classics, and the pale green color of the bell tower connects its architecture with the style of the mid-18th century.

Now both churches on Chernigovsky Lane belong to the Patriarchal Compound. In June 2010, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill transferred them to accommodate the All-Church Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies named after the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius. The rector, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, is at the same time the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, a Doctor of Theology from the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, an honorary doctor of the Russian State Social University and an honorary professor of the Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy.

On June 8, 2008, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', a particle of the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra was donated to the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist near Bor. The courtyard made a special ark in which the relics will be permanently stored. To the right of the Royal Doors in the iconostasis of the Church of John the Baptist there is an icon of the temple’s patron, St. John the Baptist, in front of which an unquenchable lamp burns. The icon was made in the manner of old Byzantine writing by Greek monks. Currently, there are no regular services in the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist, and you can only get into the temple for holiday services.