Where is the Nativity of the Theotokos monastery. Rozhdestvensky monastery. Monastery in the XIX-XX centuries

The Rozhdestvensky monastery was built in honor of the valiant victory of the Russian army on the Kulikovo field. The temples of the Rozhdestvensky Monastery, crowned with onion domes, delight the eye from afar, towering majestically above the streets and greenery of squares.

The monastery was dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin, its founder was Princess Maria. She was the mother of one of the glorious heroic participants in the Battle of Kulikovo - Prince Vladimir, nicknamed the Brave. The first nuns and novices who settled in the monastery were the mothers, widows and orphans of the warriors, who laid down their lives on the battlefield.

The site for the construction of the monastery was chosen on a hill on the banks of the Neglinnaya River, at the very edge of the Kuchkov Field, where an ancient road leading to the Kremlin walls ran. At first, the buildings of the monastery were made of wood. And only the Rozhdestvensky Monastery, built in the early 1500s, became stone.

In medieval Moscow, fires often broke out. The fiery element did not spare the monastery either. In 1547, when a fire broke out in Moscow, unprecedented in its scale, the buildings of the monastery burned down and the main cathedral was damaged. The monastery was rebuilt by the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, Anastasia.

At the beginning of the 17th century, battles with Polish troops were fought near the walls of the monastery, and many soldiers who died in these battles found rest on the monastery churchyard. During the war of 1812, the monastery churches were plundered by the enemy.

In the period 70 - 80 years of the XVII century, a cathedral in honor of St. John Chrysostom was erected with donations allocated by Princess Lobanova-Rostov. The territory of the monastery was also surrounded by a stone fence with four towers, which was later rebuilt; a new gateway church appeared above the gates. At the beginning of the last century, a church in the name of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and a refectory were laid in the monastery. An orphanage for girls functioned at the monastery, and a parish school was opened.

In the 1920s, the Rozhdestvensky monastery suffered the same fate as all monasteries in Moscow; it was closed. Silver frames and vestments were torn from the icons, and the images themselves were moved to other churches. Various institutions and offices are located in the premises. The monastic cells turned into communal apartments, the monastery churchyard was destroyed, part of the walls of the stone fence was demolished. The Nativity Cathedral was completely disfigured by various reconstructions, which were carried out in order to adapt the premises to the desired purpose of the services located in it. Only in the 70s of the last century did the Moscow authorities decide to organize a museum-reserve in the Rozhdestvensky Monastery.

And already in the 90s, at first only the Church of the Nativity, and then all the buildings of the monastery were returned to the church. All three temples and a bell tower have survived to this day.

Rozhdestvenka street, 20

The monastery was founded in 1386 in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos by the mother of the hero of the Battle of Kulikovo, Prince Vladimir the Brave, Maria Keistutovna.
The monastery stood at the top of a slope that slopes steeply down to the Neglinnaya River.
In the center of the monastery there was a wooden Christmas church, which eventually became the cathedral church of the monastery.
Princess Mary, having taken the name of Martha in monasticism, was buried outside the walls of this monastery. Later, at the Nativity monastery, the wife of Vladimir the Brave, Princess Elena Olgerdovna, took monastic vows under the name of Eupraxia. Her example was followed by the widows of the soldiers who died on the Kulikovo field. In many respects, one of the oldest monasteries in Moscow was equipped with their funds.
In 1501-1505, the wooden church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos burned down and a stone cathedral was built in its place, which has survived to this day (later two limits were added).

In 1525, Solomonia Saburova, the childless wife of Grand Duke Vasily III, was forcibly trimmed to the Rozhdestvensky Monastery. She was chosen from 1,500 brides brought from different cities of Russia. But for twenty years of marriage, the princess was unable to give birth to an heir to the throne, and then the aging Basil III sent Solomon to the Nativity monastery.

Here she was forcibly cut under the name of Sophia.
For this, Vasily III received a stern warning from the Patriarch of Constantinople that in his second marriage "You will have an evil child: your kingdom will be filled with horror and sorrow, blood will be shed in a river, the heads of nobles will fall, the hailstones will blaze".
There is also a legend that it was Solomonia, who resisted this tonsure, cursed the future marriage of her ex-husband - "God will take revenge on my persecutor!".
Since many in Moscow supported Solomon, she was sent away - to the Suzdal Pokrovsky Monastery.
Although there is a hypothesis that Solomonia, who was sent to the monastery, was already expecting a child.
Ivan IV the Terrible was born to Vasily III in his second marriage with Elena Glinskaya.

In the 17th century, the church of St. John Chrysostom was built at the expense of Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky. Later, the church was reconstructed several times and little of the original decor has survived.
In 1835, the bell tower of the cathedral was struck by lightning and a new one in the style of classicism was installed in its place. In the lower tier there is a gateway church of the sacred martyr Eugene of Kherson.

At the beginning of the 20th century, three-story cells with classrooms for a parish school were built on the territory of the monastery, as well as another temple in the name of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.
After the October Revolution, in 1922, the monastery was closed, at that time there were 800 nuns in the monastery.
Communal apartments were located on the territory of the monastery, there was a club in the church, and a school was built on the site of the demolished ancient cemetery.
In 1989, the Nativity monastery was reopened, four years later nuns appeared here.
now the monastery is undergoing restoration work.
Photography on the territory of the monastery is prohibited.

The Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery was founded in 1386 in memory of the victory at the Kulikovo field (according to some sources, it was originally located in the Kremlin, and in 1484 it was moved to its present place in the White City).

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in 1501-1505. and was rebuilt many times. During a fire in 1547, the cathedral was damaged, but was soon rebuilt. In the southern altar apse, by order of Tsar John IV, the Nikolsky side-altar was built, to which in the 17th century. added a refectory.

By the end of the 18th century. the cathedral was surrounded on the north and south sides by a covered porch, in which in the 19th century. chapels of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (1814) and St. Demetrius of Rostov (1820). In the 1670s. on the east side, the tomb of the Lobanov-Rostovsky princes was added to the cathedral, over which in the 19th century. the monastery sacristy was located. In the years 1676-1687. at the expense of the book. Fotinia Ivanovna Lobanova-Rostovskaya, the stone church of St. John Chrysostom.

In the XVI century. above the southwestern corner of the Nativity Cathedral there was a belfry, dismantled in the 17th century. and replaced by a hipped-roof bell tower, which was struck by lightning in 1855. The bell tower over the holy gates was built in 1835-1836, in the lower tier at the expense of S.I. Sterich arranged the church of the schmch. Evgeny Kherson.

The first stone fence with four corner towers was erected in 1671, the new fence was built in 1882 partly on the basis of the previous one.

At the beginning of the 20th century, over six hundred nuns labored within the walls of the monastery, in its numerous hermitages and farmsteads (before the closure of the monastery, according to some sources - 625, according to others - about 700 sisters, or even more, taking into account the inhabitants of monastic sketes and farmsteads) , the monastery owned 33 hectares of land. An orphanage for girls and a parish school operated at the monastery.

For many centuries, parallel to the northern and southern walls of the monastery, one-story buildings of the sister's cells were located in several rows. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, these buildings were demolished. Of the one-storey buildings on the territory of the monastery, there are cells located along the eastern monastery wall (now - building 8 of house No. 20 on Rozhdestvenka street), next to which a huge four-hundred-year-old oak rises. At the beginning of the 20th century, the construction of a majestic refectory church in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God began on the site of the demolished buildings.

The initial project of the Kazan temple was proposed by F.O. Schechtel, but was considered too costly. The abbess of the monastery, Abbess Yuvenalia (Lovenetskaya), opted for the project of the architect P.A. Vinogradov.

On July 6, 1904, Hieromartyr Vladimir (Epiphany), then Metropolitan of Moscow, consecrated the foundation stone of the refectory church. The construction was carried out at the expense of M.V. Lapshina. The benefactor took monastic vows with the name of Seraphima, as stated in the inscription in the temple, on the northern wall near the kliros.

On September 8, 1905, Metropolitan Volodymyr consecrated the crosses on the domes of the Kazan Cathedral and in a small order - the temple itself, in which the first Divine Liturgy was performed on that day of the patronal feast day. A year later, on August 30, 1906, Hieromartyr Vladimir performed the great consecration of the temple.

In 1922, the Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery was closed and plundered. The final liquidation of the monastery followed in 1923: according to the Izvestia newspaper on May 16, 1923, 788 nuns were evicted from the territory of the monastery, many of them were arrested. Abbess Yuvenalia and several sisters were exiled to Solovki, to a special purpose camp.

The abbot and nursing buildings of the devastated monastery were given over to communal apartments. Some of the sisters were allowed to remain in their cells as residents or to settle somewhere on the territory of the monastery. Most of the Christmas nuns suffered persecution for their faith, were tortured and killed.

In 1923, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was given to the Moscow Soviet under the militia club. After some time, a correctional labor house was placed on the territory of the monastery.

In the 30s, the ancient monastery cemetery was almost completely destroyed, where the founder of the monastery, Prince. Maria (Martha in schema, † 1389), wife of Vladimir Andreevich the Brave Prince. Elena († 1452), representatives of the Lobanov-Rostovsky family. On the site of the cemetery and the monastery garden, a hill was poured, so that the foundations of the temples and the bell tower were buried under several layers of soil and sand. A school building was erected on this embankment.

During the construction and other works on the territory of the monastery, the ancient system of "clay locks", which protected the buildings from the effects of underground waters, was violated. As a result of the violation of this system, increased humidity was established in the buildings, the walls were covered with fungus.

Under the influence of public opinion, in the 60s, by the decision of the Moscow City Executive Committee, funds were allocated for the partial restoration of the cathedral and bringing the monastery buildings into relative order. After the restoration in the cathedral, instead of residential apartments, the archive of one of the research institutes was placed.

In the seventies of the last century, most of the buildings were leased to the Moscow Architectural Institute. The rest of the houses on the territory of the monastery housed residential apartments and government offices. In the late 80s - early 90s, some premises were occupied by various firms and tenants.

In 1989, the ancient church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church.

On July 19, 1993, on the day of the celebration of the Council of Radonezh Saints, the Holy Synod adopted a resolution on the revival of monastic life in the ancient Moscow monastery. The first inhabitants were the sisters of the Pyukhtitsa monastery.

Muscovites who have visited Trubnaya Square for the first time this year say: "Wow!" - the area has changed again. In 2017, developers will present us with two seemingly dissimilar objects: a shopping center with a proud self-name "Central Market" and the Church of the New Martyrs of Russia in the Sretensky Monastery. New buildings are located at the beginning and at the end of a boulevard that rises up the hill, but when viewed from Trubnaya Square, the shopping center looks like a pedestal of a temple, combining with it not only aesthetically, but also a related circumstance of its appearance.

It is interesting to imagine that I spent the past quarter of a century on some mysterious cryogenic expedition, completely isolated from news from my homeland. And then you arrive just today, not knowing anything about the fact that he died, or about the fact that Meadow was flooded, or about the fact that the pager is unfashionable. It seems to me that a careful look at architecture would be enough to immediately understand a lot. She speaks of time more truthfully than crafty text sources. The surroundings of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard have changed in a rather fatal way, but in order to appreciate these changes, one must remember what happened before them.

View of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard from Trubnaya Square. 2017 version

I first came here in the early 80s - then I still had to say “on Zhdanov Street”. My mother and I turned into a random corner of the Rozhdestvensky Monastery - then it was still necessary to add the "former". There were apartments and the amazing post-war Moscow comfort, which was already rare in those years: all these benches at the entrances, greenery, domino tables, dozens of door cats. We walked past the gates of the Architectural Institute, near the fountain some young people diligently smoked the sky. Mom did not know about the rich alcoholic traditions of MARCHI and said: "If you study well, you will become the same." Well, I did.

Having entered the institute, I firmly settled on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, on the bench closest to the beer stall, so that the changes that began in the mid-90s took place before my eyes. By that time, there were fewer seals in the doorways, but in general, in this district, Moscow was still the one reserved. The old town stretched from Petrovka to Lubyanka, unchanged since the beginning of the 20th century. There were some knocked-out pieces in the streets, there were some non-clamorous Soviet buildings, but on the whole the area was sound, understandable and comfortable. The author does not have the strength to once again enter into polemics on the importance of the predominance of historical buildings in the historical city and simply takes it for an axiom: it was very good here. It, as they say, if you wash it, you can live with it.

Market on Trubnaya Square, 1890-1910s

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Trubnaya Square, 1902

© M. Scherer / pastvu.com

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The mansion where the City District Committee of the RKSM was located in 1921-1922

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Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, 1940-1947

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Still from the film "I am twenty years old", directed by Marlen Khutsiev, 1964

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Trubnaya Square, 1982-1984

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Beer stall on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, 1993

© R. Tsekhansky / pastvu.com

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"House with Caryatids" in Pechatnikov Lane. Shot from the feature film "The Iron Curtain" directed by Savva Kulish, 1994-1996

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But it was especially good at the beginning of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, near the famous stall, which stood under huge, perhaps the most luxurious poplars in Moscow. While studying at the institute, it was worth a lot of work on the way from the metro not to slip through to the end of Rozhdestvenka and not to wake up, burying my nose in the pub: before that it was wonderful to live under these poplars, at the intersection of four boulevards.

The former monasteries on the southern side of the boulevard, Rozhdestvensky and Sretensky, concealed many cozy drinking outlets. In my memory, no one danced a break-dance on the ruins of the chapel - it was rather such romantic sketches from the cycle "Where the Motherland Begins". For example, an unforgettable viewing platform on the roof of the current Abbess building - next to it there was a gap in the fence and a staircase down, right to the stall. And you, of course, remember that in the stall they were poured strictly into brought glass jars: all the time they had to get them somewhere, including asking for apartments. So the uncle, over whose room we used to have a carouse, always gave a container and asked to speak in a whisper during those hours when his children were sleeping. They lived according to their conscience.

On March 15, the first service was held at the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Lubyanka. They continue to paint and decorate it - by Easter

It was obvious that all this was just a calm, that the changes that we expected and hoped for were coming. Still, it was assumed that the people who began to change the city would turn out to be not so stupid and greedy, and the fellow architects serving them would not be so helpful and handy. New buildings have hidden the best panoramic views: from Petrovsky Boulevard to the Rozhdestvensky Monastery and from Rozhdestvensky Boulevard to the Petrovsky Monastery.

The prospect of Rozhdestvenka was monstrously cluttered by the "Legend of Tsvetnoy", real estate named after Naomi Campbell - do you remember the oligarch husband once gave her an apartment in his new building? (in 2013 a couple. - Approx. ed.) Half of the old houses disappeared, whole blocks of dusty, but wildly interesting walk-through yards disappeared, turning into a “solid spot” of office, residential and retail real estate. Walking along the street, you can only turn off at the doors of various kinds of institutions: they are abundant and beautiful, but something is missing.

The main trouble of Rozhdestvensky is the Central Market shopping center, which has become famous among the people under the name of the Dung Beetle. It was approved in 1996 as a glass cafe on the site of an old public toilet and began to be built in 2004. It is quite an allegory of time: the object obviously has no right to be here, since the Boulevard Ring is a monument of garden and park art, the construction of capital buildings across it is legally impossible. However, the object gradually grew to 3300 sq. m, for the sake of it a hundred meters of the boulevard was cut down, including those poplars, and its construction for 10 years has kept the boulevard in a state of dire devastation, easily blocking half of the lanes on the outer passage of the Boulevard Ring with a technical platform.

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The exact date of the opening of the "market" has not yet been announced, but outside it is finally finished. The object visually locked the boulevard and enclosed Trubnaya Square, clearly not having a vocation for this. The situation is saved as if a cathedral standing on its roof, ascended last year, three hundred meters from here. New buildings are quite compatible stylistically - a sort of pseudo-traditional architecture, somewhat ridiculous in its demonstrative importance. At the shopping center there is a generous abundance of balusters, at the temple there is overflowing decorative facades. In fact, the cathedral is the same legalized squatter: capital new construction in the security zone of the ancient monastery is, in principle, unacceptable. But the Sretensky Monastery has long existed according to separate rules.

Looking back to the 1990s, it should be noted that in the Rozhdestvensky and Sretensky monasteries the future came in different ways. Both of them had typical school buildings in their backs, built on the site of the monastery gardens. Rozhdestvensky got rid of unnecessary real estate in order to revive the garden, and Sretensky, using the powerful administrative resource of the lord, took the opposite tactic. He added an attic and adapted the building of the school expelled from the territory of the seminary, added three floors to the old Empire cells, and accommodated several thousand square meters of utility space and a two-storey parking under the new cathedral.

Orthodoxy also has its own pop, its own rock and its own underground. Father, they say, Tikhon is one of those stars who collect stadiums - it's ridiculous to offer him a tour of the Moscow region's recreation centers

Looking at the cathedral from afar, it seems that the golden domes had time to peel off. Only when you come closer, you realize that these are ornaments in silver on gilding. The new building stands on a hill and at the same time is crushed in detail like a thing designed for a view from a close distance. But there is no space nearby to admire the pretentious decoration, the old houses on the boulevard press the cathedral, and there is a fear that this is not the final stage of the formation of the ensemble. Clara Kirchhoff's house. Muscovites know the unique "house with caryatids" saved from death by an entrepreneur from Syktyvkar (the private business on Truba also followed different paths into the future). The Kirchhoff house is a twin brother that has grown into a wall with it, whose ivy-covered courtyard was one of the best patriotic educational points in the area. The guys and I conditionally called it the heart of Moscow, and those who were ordered to take two and pull up to the named place, as a rule, immediately understood what kind of heart they were talking about. So it is typical: 20 years later, the destruction is continued not by the mysterious LLC in crimson suits, but by the interregional public organization of the historical and cultural heritage "Noble Union". As they say, I'll just leave it here - on the tablets of the capital's local history.

Once again, with the guys, we once collected the press, trying to draw attention to the disasters of the best Moscow boulevard, and I suggested drawing a dotted separation line across the road: here, where the courtyards and houses are, Moscow will be, and here is where the plastic office and the highly respected Naomi, don't get what. But one smart girl said: "You see, Sasha, the problem is precisely that Moscow is everywhere." And when you realize that there is no magic line behind which one could hide from dung town planning and everything else that each of us is not quite to our liking, it becomes, oddly enough, easier.

The monastery was founded in 1386 by the wife of Prince Andrei Serpukhovsky and the mother of Prince Vladimir the Brave - Princess Maria Konstaninovna, who tonsured her tonsure here as a nun before her death in 1389 under the name of Martha. At first it was on the territory and bore the name of the monastery of the Nativity of the Virgin on the Moat. There is also a version that from the moment of its foundation the monastery was located on the banks of the river, near the Kuchkov field, in the possession of Prince Vladimir Andreevich Serpukhovsky.

Nikolay Naidenov, CC BY-SA 3.0

In the 1430s, Princess Elena Olgerdovna, the wife of Prince Vladimir the Brave, was tonsured at the monastery under the name Eupraxia, and she was buried, according to her will, at the monastery cemetery in 1452. Princess Elena donated the monastery to the village with the villages.

The one-domed stone cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was erected in 1501–1505 in the tradition of early Moscow architecture. After the fire in 1547, for 150 years, it was surrounded by outbuildings that distorted the original appearance.

Church of St. John Chrysostom (1676-1678) A.Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0

On November 25, 1525, the wife of Vasily the Third, Solomoniy Saburov, was forcibly tonsured under the name Sophia in the Nativity monastery. She lived in the monastery before being transferred to the Suzdal Intercession Monastery.

In the summer of 1547, during a strong Moscow fire, the buildings of the monastery burned down, and the stone cathedral was damaged. It was soon restored by the vow of Tsarina Anastasia Romanovna, the wife of Ivan the Terrible. By order of the tsar himself, the Nikolsky side-chapel was created in the southern altar apse.

In the 70s of the 17th century, the Nativity Monastery became the burial place of the Lobanov-Rostovsky princes: their tomb was added to the cathedral from the east. In the 19th century, it received the second floor, which housed the monastery sacristy.

userpage, CC BY-SA 3.0

In 1676-1687, at the expense of Princess Fotinia Ivanovna Lobanova-Rostovskaya, a stone church of St. John Chrysostom was erected with a refectory and chapels of St. Nicholas, righteous Philaret the Merciful and St. Demetrius of Rostov. At her own expense, in 1671, a stone fence with four towers was built.

Monastery in the XIX-XX centuries

In 1835-1836, a bell tower was built over the Holy Gates with the church of Hieromartyr Eugene, Bishop of Kherson (designed by N. I. Kozlovsky, the church was built at the expense of S. I. Shterich).

At the beginning of the 20th century, three-storey cell buildings were built, which housed the classrooms of the parish school. In 1903-1904, according to the project of the architect P.A.Vinogradov, the church of St. John Chrysostom was reconstructed and the refectory of the monastery was erected. In 1904-1906 Vinogradov built a temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God with a new refectory chamber. An orphanage for girls and a parish school operated at the monastery.

Bell tower in the style of classicism (1835-1836) Sergey Rodovnichenko, CC BY-SA 2.0

In 1922 the monastery was closed, the silver vestments were removed from the icons (a total of 17 poods of silver were taken out), some of the icons were initially moved to the Church of St. Nicholas in Zvonary, and later to the Church of the Sign in Pereyaslavskaya Sloboda. The monastery housed office, scientific and educational institutions. Communal apartments were arranged in the cells. Some of the nuns were allowed to stay in the former monastery; two nuns lived on the territory of the monastery until the end of the 1970s. The monastery cemetery, together with the grave of the founder of the monastery, Princess Maria Andreevna, was destroyed, part of the walls were demolished.

In 1974, by the decision of the Moscow City Council, the Rozhdestvensky Monastery was transferred to the Moscow Architectural Institute to organize a museum-reserve of ancient Russian art and architecture. After restoration, the archives of one of the research institutes were kept in the Nativity Cathedral.

Modernity

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was returned to the church in 1992, and services resumed there on May 14, 1992. The monastery has been provided with stavropegium.

The monastery was revived on July 16, 1993, restoration work is underway. There is a Sunday school at the monastery for children 4-17 years old. In 2010, a free three-year church singing school for women was opened in the monastery. Her curriculum includes the study of catechism, liturgy, liturgical regulations, solfeggio, church singing, and a choral class. In 2011, a library was created at the schools in the monastery.

Since 1999, the monastery's courtyard has been the Temple of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow", located in the village of Fedorovskoye, Volokolamsk District, Moscow Region.

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