My favorite temple in Moscow is Cosmas and Damian near the monument to Dolgoruky on Tverskaya. For me, this is a stronghold of rationality and adequacy, democracy, and an example of what a church and rector really should be (Alexander Borisov is the successor and once friend of Alexander Men). Last Easter, at the night service, we just didn’t see anyone - scooters in leather jackets and with tattoos, and hippies with dreadlocks and baubles, and girls dressed in national linen dresses to the heels with embroidered patterns. And everyone stood until four in the morning, because faith is not about external attributes, it is about internal.
In general, for me it is such a beacon. It is interesting that Alexander Borisov's sermons from the services are carefully posted on the site in YouTube format, and now another wonderful priest from Israel has appeared there - John Guaita. He speaks with an accent, but you can feel the energy and charge in him and he is very educated, reads lectures. I started listening to Symbol of faith, for example, and really liked it (now we need to figure out how to download it to your phone and listen on the road). In April, I got to the service, where many people with children came (they write so in the schedule: parishioners with children are invited). The hubbub, twittering, and it's great that a screen was rolled out at this liturgy, on which there were subtitles of the entire service - what the priest says, what the choir sings. Guaita explained that the choir, as it were, only directs, and the point is to sing all together, and the people, indeed, looking at the screen, began to sing, and this, indeed, is a completely different feeling of community and action.
But besides what they say, I really like what they do. This is the first place where I saw calls to write to prisoners, and then it seemed something incomprehensible, exotic. Now it doesn't seem so anymore. On May, having opened their website, I found Borisov’s blog-story about his impressions of visiting colony IK-18 in the village. Kharp of the Salekhard diocese (IK-18 is the Correctional Colony with the romantic name "Polar Owl"). This is so touching!
“During these days, 49 people sentenced to life imprisonment were able to confess and receive communion, three of them were baptized on one of these days. All these people are very different both in terms of the level and ardor of their faith, and in terms of zeal in reading Holy Scripture and prayer rule. The latter does not correlate in any way with the level of education or erudition. All of them experience their conversion to the Christian faith already in prison conditions as a great happiness in their lives and take everything connected with faith and the sacraments extremely seriously. All of them are aware their crime as the greatest mistake of their lives, although it cannot be said that two out of 49 people do not plead guilty and believe that they became victims of a mistrial, when the investigation should have “hung up” the crimes committed on someone. Of course, it is difficult for me to judge this, but, of course, these people deserve special prayer for them (Roman, Ilya). poor and ardent faith and, like everyone else, were very glad to have the opportunity to confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.
In general, the example of communication with these convicts shows how faith, Holy Scripture and prayer truly fill the lives of people who are currently deprived of everything in essence. Almost all of them have 2-3 convictions behind them. Murders committed (and life sentences are given for the murder of two or more persons), as a rule, are completely ridiculous, drunk, in extreme anger, etc. Listening to their confessions, it becomes quite clear that at the moment of a crime, people turn into an instrument of Satan and commit acts that are completely unnatural for themselves. This, apparently, does not apply to serial killers, maniacs, where the power of Satan constantly dominates their consciousness. But I have never met such people.
One of the great blessings of our time is that there is absolutely no bar at this time for believers to sympathize and preach to all these people who have transgressed the law, and often the victims of a miscarriage of justice or a tragic set of circumstances. Let's not forget that only 25 years ago all this was absolutely prohibited. Communication with these people by letters, book parcels, a little support with parcels or small money transfers (for a convict and 500 rubles a month is a huge support) - all this can completely change the hearts and fate of these people. But those who are not sentenced to life (and this is the majority) will return to their homes, to their relatives and acquaintances by other people, believers, creators, and not destroyers of life. I don't know how things are with convicts in other countries, but here, in Russia, almost all convicts are happy to correspond with believing Orthodox Christians. Can we, believing Christians, miss this unique opportunity given to us to preach to our people, and to the most disadvantaged part of it?! I think that almost every parishioner, with rare exceptions (mothers of many children and seriously ill people), can correspond with one, maximum two (no more) convicts. The return address, of course, is the address of our temple.
Stoleshnikov Lane got its name from the fact that in the 16th-17th centuries there lived tablecloths - weavers who produced tablecloths for the royal court. P.V. Sytin notes: “For the first time, Stoleshnikov Lane, as Rozhdestvenskaya Street, was mentioned in the spiritual letter of Ivan III in 1504. But the church of Cosmas and Damian, which stood in the first half of the 14th century, in Shubin, and the name of the lane in the 18th century by Shubin, make us assume that the lane existed in the 14th century. V.A. lived in Stoleshnikov Lane. Gilyarovsky, who said that in it, "like a sun in a drop of water, the whole life of the city is reflected." V.V. Mayakovsky has wonderful lines:
I love Kuznetsky
(forgive the sinner!),
then Petrovka,
then Stoleshnikov;
on them
per year
a hundred or two hundred times
I go from Izvestia
and in Izvestia.
According to one version, the name of the Shubino area was given by “fur coats” - furriers who traded in fur coats and furs. I.K. Kondratiev writes about this in the “Gray old times of Moscow”. According to another, more substantiated version, here in the 14th century was the court of the boyar Iakinf Shuba, an associate of Dmitry Donskoy. In 1368, the Lithuanian prince Olgerd went to war against the Moscow principality. This is mentioned by N.M. Karamzin in “History of the Russian State”: “The astonished Grand Duke sent messengers to assemble the troops and, wanting to stop the enemy’s desire, ordered the boyar, Dimitry Minin, to go forward with the Moscow, Kolomna and Dmitrovsky regiments alone.
The second chief was the voivode Prince Vladimir Andreevich, named Iakinf Shuba. Already Olgerd, like a lion, raged in the Russian possessions: not inferior to the Mongols in cruelty, he grabbed the unarmed prisoners, burned the cities. Many of our princes, boyars lay down on the spot, and the regiments of Moscow were completely exterminated. For three days, Olgerd stood under the walls of the Kremlin, plundered churches, monasteries, without approaching the city. Iakinf Shuba died heroically in a major battle near Trostenskoye Lake. The famous historian I.M. Snegirev associated the name of the area Shubino with the messenger Shubin-Gryaznov, who may have been a descendant of Iakinf Shuba.
Saints Cosmas and Damian were brothers who lived in Asia in the 3rd century. Asia (or Asia) the Romans called the southwestern part of the current peninsula of Asia Minor. Over time, the name Asia began to apply to the entire peninsula and, finally, to the entire part of the world lying to the east of Europe. The life of Cosmas and Damian, written by Dimitri Rostovsky, says: “Cosmas and Damian were, as it were, two lamps on earth, shining with good deeds. They received from God the gift of healing and gave health to souls and bodies, healing all sorts of diseases, healing every disease and every ulcer among people, and casting out evil spirits.
Even after their death, Saints Cosmas and Damian continued to perform miracles. The brothers were buried in one tomb, to which a huge number of sick people came to receive healing. Already in the IV-V centuries, they began to be revered as the patrons of doctors and pharmacists, and later - all beggars. They turned to Cosmas and Damian for help during epidemics and the treatment of peptic ulcers and other diseases. In Russia, the holy brothers-healers were the patrons of the holiness and indissolubility of true Christian marriage, the organizers of a happy marriage. Among the people, they were considered "handicraftsmen", blacksmiths-unmercenaries or God's blacksmiths.
The blacksmiths had a professional holiday on the day of remembrance of the saints, on which they never worked. The iconography of the saints reflected their involvement in medical skill: they were depicted holding boxes for storing medicines in their hands. E. L. Madlevskaya in the encyclopedia "Russian Mythology" notes: "Koi and Demyan were revered as patrons of healers and healers and turned to them with requests and prayers for the healing of people or animals. The names of saints are often found in conspiracy texts aimed at getting rid of bleeding, hernia, shaking (fever) and other ailments.
Here is how, for example, an appeal looks like in a Tobolsk conspiracy for toothache, where the holy brothers turn into a single character: “Father Kozma Demyan lies in a cave, his white teeth do not hurt, and I have a servant of God (name) no pain.” In Russia, the unmercenary brothers were treated with special awe, love and reverence. They were perceived as blacksmiths who forge wedding crowns and weddings themselves, and the well-being of the marriage depended on the quality of the work of the holy blacksmiths. Before the wedding, the bride addressed Cosmas and Damian in a wedding song:
Mother, Kuzma-Demyan!
Buy us a wedding
firmly,
To the gray head
To a long beard!
Kuzma-Demyan
Walked through the canopy
Collected nails
Forged a wedding!
The first mention of a church in the Shubino area is found in the Sophia Time Book under 1368. It says that the governor Dmitry Donskoy "Iakinf Shuba had a courtyard near Tverskaya, founded the church of his name Iakinf, then the second Cosmodamian chapel appeared in it." The oldest name of the church was "Cosmas and Damian on Rzhishchi". Once on this place there were wide rye fields, near which folk festivals took place. In the documents of the 18th century, another name is also found - “Cosmas and Damian, behind the Gagarin Yard”, because the estate of the noble princes Gagarins was located on Tverskaya Street since the 17th century.
In archival documents, the Cosmodomian Church was first mentioned in 1625. Then the temple was wooden and had side chapels of St. Nicholas and the Hieromartyr Polycarp. In 1626 there was a great fire in Moscow. Instead of a wooden church that burned down during a fire, they decided to build a stone one. Apparently, the construction of the temple was delayed, since the eagle brick found by the restorers in the masonry of the building usually dates from the middle of the 17th century. The main throne of the newly built temple was consecrated in the name of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, the people still called the church Kosmodamian.
In 1703, a major restructuring of a very dilapidated church began. The parish of the church of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin was poor, so the restoration work dragged on for ten years. And the decree of 1714 on the prohibition of stone construction in all of Russia, except for St. Petersburg, interrupted construction for an indefinite period. Only eight years later, the restoration of the temple continued: “On the 6th day of October 1722, a decree was sealed on the construction of the church according to the petition of the church of Cosmas and Damian, in Shubin, priest Dmitry Ivanov from the parishioners, ordered them to complete that unfinished stone Kosmodemyanskaya church against the decree.”
How the priest managed to obtain permission to resume the construction of the temple "against the decree" remains a mystery to researchers. The Church of Cosmas and Damian acquired the appearance characteristic of the first quarter of the 18th century, but retained the planned composition and parts of the masonry of the temple, founded in 1626. A wide octagon was erected above the quadrangle, completed with a vault with a cupola on an openwork white stone stand made of volutes. As a result of the construction that dragged on for more than twenty years, the Kosmodemyanskaya Church absorbed the features of the architecture of the late 17th - early 18th centuries.
Figured platbands on the windows of the quadrangle and arched volutes attached to the neck of the dome - such a combination can be found only on parts of the same temple at different times. At the same time, a two-tiered bell tower was built (also an octagon on a quadrangle), completed with an elegant spire. In the 18th century, a frequent toponymic clarification in the name of the Cosmodamian Church was "behind the Golden Grid". Researchers do not know exactly where this grid was located. Perhaps it closed the beautiful high porch that led to the temple of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin from the alley. In 1773 the church was repaired after another fire.
During the French invasion of Moscow in 1812, a real miracle happened: the temple of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin survived the terrible Moscow fire and was not even looted by the enemy, although all neighboring buildings were badly damaged. In September 1812, the "lighters of Moscow" were shot near the walls of the church - Muscovites accidentally caught on the streets. According to contemporaries, “innocent victims suffered death” in front of the icon of the Savior depicted outside on the church wall. According to a church certificate of 1813, "the church of Cosmas and Damian is in good condition, did not burn, and is not damaged in any way, either externally or internally."
The same certificate says: “Silver things like that: three Gospels, two vessels, three crosses, two censers and salaries from the images, how many of them were observed, robes of silk fabrics in pairs of ten and books needed for the priesthood, there are parish three yards remained unburned, two of the burnt ones are being rebuilt, the clergy and clergy do not have their own houses, but they live in the allotted government house of the commander in chief. During the post-fire reconstruction of Moscow, the Church of the Resurrection of the Word on Dmitrovka was closed and dismantled. Her parish was transferred to the Cosmodamian Church, to which the northern Resurrection chapel was attached.
The octagon of the bell tower was surrounded by columns of the Tuscan order. Next to the church, along the line of the alley, a two-story stone empire-style house of the clergy was built. The Moscow Church Gazette for 1889 provides interesting details: “In 1840-42, this temple was renovated by the zeal of the church elder, an honorary citizen of the first guild of the merchant V.I. Borisovsky. In the real Church of the Annunciation there is a three-tiered iconostasis with columns and carvings of the best work, gilded with newly painted icons. The temple was consecrated by His Eminence Metropolitan Filaret in 1842, in the spring, and a word was also spoken.
In 1857, thanks to the efforts of the sons of the merchant Borisovsky, a new one was erected instead of the old bell tower. At the same time, a southern chapel was built, where the Cosmodamian throne was transferred from the refectory. Empire-style processing of facades was replaced by pseudo-Byzantine. In 1887–1897, at the expense of the merchant D.R. Vostryakov, who donated more than 10 thousand rubles to the church, painted the dome, the walls of the temple and the altar with oil painting, updated the main iconostasis and arranged a new iconostasis in the aisle of Cosmas and Damian. In the 1910s, the composer P.G. Chesnokov, whose works were included in the repertoire of the Synodal Choir and other major choirs.
In 1922, after the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the seizure of church valuables to help the starving, the Cosmodamian Church was plundered. They seized more than seven pounds of silver, one diamond, forty precious stones, a riza with precious stones and a cross with a diamond. In 1929, the temple of Cosmas and Damian was closed. Four years later, the bell tower of the church was destroyed to the second tier. A residential building with an Aragvi restaurant was built nearby. In the late 1950s, instead of the Cosmodamian Church, they wanted to build a multi-storey building. Fortunately, this project was not carried out. For a long time, the building of the temple housed the book depository of the Library of Foreign Literature.
In 1958, the printing house of the economic administration of the Ministry of Culture was located in the church. The chief engineer of the printing house, V.A. Svetlov, ordered that the frescoes be covered with paint, but in such a way that they could be easily restored. Although the Cosmodamian Church was saved from demolition, some destruction could not be avoided. The premises of the temple were adapted to the needs of the printing house, an extension was made to the building. At the altars they arranged a platform for walking dogs. In the 1970s, a two-story 19th-century clergy house was demolished. Restoration began in 1977: the cupola with a golden openwork cross, the upper row of windows of the quadrangle and some decorations of the octagon were restored.
In the summer of 1991, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II, divine services were resumed in the Cosmodamian Church. True, they were performed in a small room in the lower tier of the bell tower, because the building of the temple continued to be occupied by a printing house. On Easter 1992, after a sixty-year break, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated again in the church of Cosmas and Damian. Only in 1995 were the constructions of the second floor of the printing house dismantled and work began to restore the interior of the temple. Thanks to the restorers headed by V.G. The Vetoshnovs succeeded in uncovering and restoring the 19th-century murals in the central part of the temple.
The restorers had to do a colossal job: sometimes up to ten paint layers had to be removed in one place. During restoration work in the central altar, under a layer of plaster, an icon of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos was found. On November 13, 1997, the temple icon of the holy unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Assia, which had been kept for a long time in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word in Bryusov Lane, was returned to the Cosmodamian Church. In 1998, a belfry was finally erected near the Cosmodamian Church. The new bells were cast at the ZIL factory and installed just before Easter.
Almost invisible from the crowded Tverskaya Street, the Church of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin is undoubtedly worthy of the attention of everyone who strolls around Tverskaya Square. The unpretentious octagon on the quadrangle has a number of characteristic features. The corners of the volumes of the temple are marked with shoulder blades, the sides of the octagon are decorated with wide rectangular arched niches. The windows of the quadrangle are framed with architraves with torn pediments in the spirit of the Moscow Baroque. In the northern portal of the church, wrought iron doors have been preserved, which, according to researchers, date back to the first quarter of the 18th century, the time of the construction of the temple.
To the east of the southern portal, a white-stone tombstone in the form of a baroque cartouche has survived in the outer wall. The lower white-stone part of the fence, which appeared in the 18th century, served as a retaining wall for the church hill. The elements of the Cosmodamian Church at different times are surprisingly harmoniously combined with each other. In 2105, this original Moscow church finally had a real bell tower again, and it regained its voice. Today, at the Church of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin, there is a parish Sunday school, a youth Orthodox seminar and a seminar of the Bible Society.
Guide to Architectural StylesIt got its name from the court of the voivode Iakinfiy Shuba, which was located here in the 14th century. But there is a version that fur coats or furriers lived in these places.
Historians believe that the temple of the holy unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian could not have survived the fire of 1812. Documents say otherwise: although Napoleonic soldiers shot Muscovites accused of arson near its walls, they did not touch the shrine itself. But after the war, the baroque church was still rebuilt in the classicist style.
In the 1910s-1920s, the composer of sacred music, Pavel Chesnokov, was the regent of the temple. Apparently, he buried on March 21, 1916 the painter V.I. Surikov, who died in the neighboring building of the Dresden Hotel.
In the 1920s, the temple was closed, and in 1933 the bell tower was destroyed to the first tier.
What is what in the churchIn the building of the church in Shubin, a repository of the Library of Foreign Literature was arranged. This saved the temple, although they wanted to build a residential building in its place.
The Church of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin was partially restored in the 1970s. Then it became known that fragments of painting of the 18th-19th centuries were preserved in the interior. In 1991, divine services were resumed in the temple, and in 2003 the bell tower was restored. Eight of its bells, which were cast at the expense of honorary residents of the city, were lost, but new ones were made at the ZIL plant.
Stone Church of St. Cosmas and Damiana (“on Rzhishchi”, “what is on Shubin”, “behind the golden bars”, “behind the Gagarin yard”) stood in Stoleshnikov Lane from 1626. Previously, there was a wooden temple in its place, which still remembered Dmitry Donskoy. Not far from the church in the XIV century. there was the court of the noble boyar Joakinf Shuba, "who sealed with his signature the spiritual letter of Dmitry Donskoy", hence the name of the church - the church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in Shubin.
The church survived fires and destruction, but was always restored - even contrary to the order of Peter the Great not to carry out stone construction in Moscow. She was spared by the fire of 1812, although the entire quarter adjoining the temple burned out. Nevertheless, 1812 was a sad year for the temple: in September, near the walls of the church, Napoleonic soldiers shot the “incendiaries of Moscow” without trial or investigation: “innocent victims suffered death” in front of the image of the Savior, who was on the wall of the church.
In 1822, another chapel was added to the temple - Resurrection: after the fire of 1812, the parishioners of the Resurrection Church on Bolshaya Dmitrovka were transferred to the Church of Cosmas and Damian. The construction of the new limit was carried out under the supervision of the architect A.F. Elkinsky (1788-1827) at the expense of "parishioners and benefactors". At the same time, the apse of the main temple was redone, and the bell tower acquired a classic look. The octagon of the bell tower "was surrounded by Tuscan columns". However, in 1857-1858. the bell tower had to be rebuilt again: it was dismantled to the first tier and rebuilt. During this restructuring, the southern chapel dedicated to Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The bell tower and the new southern aisle were built in the pseudo-Byzantine style, partly they have survived to this day. 8 church bells were also cast at the expense of the Borisovskys. In 1887–1889 at the expense of other parishioners - merchant D.R. Vostryakov and his wife, nee - the dome, the walls of the temple and the altar were painted with oil painting.
In 1910–1920s. the famous composer Pavel G. Chesnokov was the regent of the temple. Apparently, on March 8 (21), 1916, he was buried by the great Russian painter V.I. Surikov, who died on March 6 in the neighboring building of the Dresden Hotel.
Only the revolution did not spare the church. In 1922 it was ruined and closed, in 1933 the bell tower was dismantled to the lower tier. The building was adapted for a library of foreign literature. In 1958, the question arose of demolishing the church: in Stoleshnikovo, it was decided to build a multi-storey residential building. Fortunately, the project was not carried out.
Part of the church building was restored in the 1970s. Then the decoration of the octagon with the cupola was restored (it looked like this in the photograph of 1867). However, the restoration did not mean the transfer of the temple to the church. In 1980–90, it housed a printing house of the Economic Department of the USSR Ministry of Culture, and only in 1991 worship was resumed in the church.
