Wooden churches: wooden churches in Russia, list, description

Wooden architecture in Russia

Reaches its greatest prosperity in the 15th-18th centuries. Wooden temple construction prevailed in the northern regions of the country. This is explained:

remoteness from the center and large industrial areas, in which stone construction predominated;
inaccessible to the Mongol-Tatars;
the absence of serfdom in the 18-19 centuries;
the presence of extensive forests.

Wooden church in the name of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity in Korolev

Until the mid-19th century, wood remained the most common building material in Russia. Mastery in this area reached incredible heights. Several main types (or types) of wooden religious buildings were common.

Kletskaya Church

Most similar in appearance to residential buildings, huts. It has a rectangular frame, most often a gable roof. Although there are also four- and eight-slope endings. Representatives of this group:

Church of Dmitry of Thessalonica, Staraya Ladoga, Leningrad region;
Spasskaya Church from the village of Fominskoye, museum in Kostroma;
Vvedenskaya Church, Osinovo, Arkhangelsk region;
Church of St. George the Victorious (1493), Rodionovo (Yuksovichi), Leningrad region;
Kazan Church, Taltsy, Irkutsk region;
Church of the Resurrection, Neklyudovo (Bor), Nizhny Novgorod region;
Church of St. Andrew the First-Called, Solovki, Arkhangelsk region.

St. Andrew's Skete of the Solovetsky Monastery

The cage type prevailed in Russian wooden architecture. Although it was similar to domestic buildings, it was fundamentally different from them in its vertical orientation, pointed tops, and expressive forms.

Tent Church

Temples, the central part of which, instead of a dome, is covered with an architectural structure in the form of a multifaceted pyramid, belong to tent architecture. This shape apparently arose due to the fact that it is difficult to build domes from wood. The design of the tent in this case is much simpler.

The most common option is a frame of 6-8 vertically stacked logs, with the upper ends converging upward. The following have survived to this day:

Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Novinki village, Vologda region;
St. George's Church, from the village of Vershina, Malye Korely, Arkhangelsk region;
Nativity Church, Yakovlevskaya village, Zaostrovye, Arkhangelsk region;
Assumption Church, Varzuga, Murmansk region;
Resurrection Church from the village of Potakino, museum in Suzdal, Vladimir region;
Church of the Archangel Michael, Yuroma, Arkhangelsk region.

Wooden tented Assumption Church in Karelia

Tent temples largely determined the appearance of ancient Russian cities and villages. The elongated, pillar-shaped silhouettes of churches looked contrasting against the background of domestic buildings. Wooden tented churches are also popular in modern Russia, where they are especially popular.

Tiered Church

Temples of this type began to be built from the end of the 17th century. Their design consists of log houses, quadruples or octagons, stacked on top of each other, decreasing towards the top. As a rule, such temples are crowned with one chapter. They can be considered using an example:

Church of St. John the Theologian of the 17th century, the village of Bogoslovo on the Ishna River, Yaroslavl region;
Tikhvin Church in Torzhok;
St. Nicholas Church, Vysoky Ostrov village, Novgorod region, Vitoslavlitsy museum;
Transfiguration Church (1756), Kozlyatevo village, Vladimir region;
Church of the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary (1552), village of Kholm, Kostroma region;
Church of John the Baptist (1694), Shirkov churchyard.

Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist, Shirkov Pogost

Wooden tiered churches are found mainly in the central part of Russia.

Cubic Church

The time and place of distribution of such temples was the mid-17th to late 18th centuries, the White Sea coast and Poonezhie. The design is based on a naos, covered with a cube on top, usually ending with 5 or 9 chapters. The most famous of the cubic temples that have survived to this day are:

Church of St. Paraskevi (1666), village of Shuya, Arkhangelsk region;
St. Nicholas Church in the village of Conception near Kholmogory;
Church of the Ascension (1669), village of Kushereka, Arkhangelsk region.

Church of the Ascension in Onega region

Sometimes the architectural type includes temples, the completion of which is built in a cubic form.

Domed church

Religious buildings of this type are characterized by roofs formed by hexagons or octahedrons stretched upward like an onion. Here are some of them:

Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (1808), village of Zayacherichye, Vologda region;
Church of St. Nicholas (19th century), village of Zayacherichye, Vologda region;
Vvedenskaya Church, Boriskovo village, Ryazan region.

Churches with domes were common in the 18th and 19th centuries. in Povazhye, on the banks of the Vaga River in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions, as well as in Siberia and Ukraine.

Multi-domed church

Temples with more than five chapters became a striking event in Russian architecture. This was the last, final stage of wooden temple construction. It is based on a multi-tiered composition and an octagon with 4 cuts.

Church of the Intercession, Kizhi Pogost;
St. Basil's Church (1657), Chukhcherma village, Arkhangelsk region;;
Transfiguration Church, Kizhi;
Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1708-1963), recreated in the Nevsky Forest Park.

Church of the Intercession in Nevsky Forest Park

Old Russian churches, despite their small size, created the impression of monumentality, grandeur, and representativeness.

Wooden temples of Rus'

Wood is a short-lived building material and is also highly flammable. Therefore, very few ancient monuments of wooden architecture have survived to this day. We know about the existence of some temples exclusively from chronicles: the Assumption Cathedral in Rostov (992), St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (989), others. But there are also those that have survived to this day.

The oldest wooden church in Russia

One of the oldest examples of Russian wooden architecture that has survived to this day is a small wooden church built in the village of Borodava in 1485, near the Ferapontov Monastery (23 km), and named in honor of the holiday of the Position of the Venerable Robe of the Mother of God in Blachernae.

Church of the Placing of the Robe from the village of Borodava

In 1957-58 was moved to the city of Kirillov during the construction of the Volga-Baltic waterway (it fell into the flood zone), and is now located in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

Wooden temple without a single nail

As an ancient legend says, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord (1714) on the island of Kizhi was built by a master named Nestor with only an ax, without a single nail. The temple has an octagonal frame at its base, topped with 22 domes.

Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord on Kizhi Island

In 1990 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, and a few years later - in the list of the most valuable cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia.

Wooden Suzdal temple

Church of St. Nicholas (1766) in Suzdal - another example of carpentry, was built without the use of nails. Transported to the city in 1960 from the village of Glotovo, Vladimir region, and restored by architect M. M. Sharonov. The move was motivated by the preservation of the monument and the development of Suzdal as a tourist center.

St. Nicholas Church on the territory of the Suzdal Kremlin

Wooden churches in Moscow

The first churches of the capital of the Russian state were wooden and short-lived. Therefore, they have hardly survived to this day. Subsequently, Moscow continued to erect mainly stone buildings. At the end of the 20th century, church life in the capital revived, and the city continues to be built up with churches. Among them are many wooden temples:

temple of st. Tikhon of Zadonsky (1863), Sokolniki metro station;
Church of the Transfiguration (19th century), Bogorodsky district, st. Krasnobogatyrskaya 17;
temple in honor of the Sovereign Icon of the Mother of God (1995), near the station. Kropotkinskaya metro station;
Church of the Great Martyr George the Victorious (1997) in Koptevo, Voikovskaya metro station;

Church of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious in Koptevo
Holy Cross Chapel (1996), Krasnopresnenskoye metro station;
Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1997) in Raevo, Babushkinskaya metro station;
church-chapel of St. Vmch. Vladimir Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia (1997), Sviblovo metro station;
church-chapel of St. Nikolay, st. Eliseiskaya, 22;
temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Quench my sorrows”, Medvedkovo metro station;
Church of Alexy Metropolitan of Moscow (1998), Northern Medvedkovo;
Chapel of Rev. Sergius of Radonezh, intersection of Norilskaya and Malygina streets;
Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, Butovo;
Church of St. Dimitry Donskoy, Gardeners;

Church of St. Demetrius Donskoy in Sadovniki, Moscow
chapel of St. Nikolay, st. Kargopolskaya, Otradnoye metro station.

This is not a complete list of all wooden churches in Moscow. In such churches it is especially easy to breathe and pray; the interior is a very bright and cozy, calm place for parishioners.

Wooden churches in the Leningrad region

In the village of Rodionovo, in the Podporozhsky district of the Leningrad region, on the shore of the lake, the courtyard of the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery is located. Monks live here all year round; in the summer there is an Orthodox children's camp.

Nearby, on the same bank, stands the St. George Church, built almost 500 years ago. This is one of the oldest operating wooden churches in Russia. The building has minimal decoration, but it is elegant - its craftsmen had a subtle sense of beauty.

Church of St. George the Victorious in the Leningrad region

Resurrection Church in the village of Vazhiny, Podporozhye district. It was built in 1630. Originally a hipped structure, ten-sided, it was rebuilt in the 19th century. Therefore, its appearance combines the forms of an ancient wooden temple with the features of modern architecture. The only wooden temple that has survived to this day and has a decahedron at its base.

Among the new, modern projects is a wooden church built by Mikhail Krasovsky in the holiday village of Vyritsy. Today it is one of the most visited churches in the Leningrad region. Such a large flow of people coming here is associated with one of the main shrines, the grave, the resting place of St. Seraphim Vyritsky.

Temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, Vyritsa

The oldest wooden church in Russia

Vladimir Stanulevich, Summer Guide of REGNUM Information Agency, May 29, 2021, 07:30 — REGNUM Lyavlya is not only a beautiful place on the slopes of a wide ravine where a river flows, but also a significant historical place in the Russian North. Here, in the 14th century, the Novgorod mayor Anastasia founded the Assumption Monastery . It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the Arkhangelsk region. In 1340, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan I Kalita granted the monastery the Gospel, which was later named Siysky after the name of the monastery in whose library it was kept. Or the Siysk Gospel of 1340, since there is a second, magnificent Siysk Gospel of 1693.

Lyavlya - a historical place of the Russian North