Little-known masterpiece of the Ivanovo region: Ilyinsky temple, where you can hear the rare "ringing under the tent"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In small Russian towns and even villages, you can sometimes find such unique architectural gems, for the sake of which it is worth to overcome many kilometers. The Church of Elijah the Prophet in the town of Teikovo, Ivanovo region, is one such example. It is believed that this architectural masterpiece, made in the style of Russian ornamentation, with a ringing, crowned with a tent, has no analogues. It is surprising that in the Petrine era, along with the temples of the Naryshkin style that were fashionable at that time, such an original church appeared.

"Ringing under the tent" is a very rare phenomenon in Russian architecture. In addition, the octahedral belfry near the Elias Church stands on a high four, cut through by arches and surrounded by an apse and a refectory, which is also unusual. The building was built in the style of pillarless churches under the bell and, which is remarkable, is sustained in the spirit of the pre-Petrine architecture of the 17th century.

This ancient building, with a bell tower located directly above the temple, is distinguished by a unique expressive silhouette and original volumetric composition. And it was built instead of the originally existing chapel of Elijah the Prophet, which was part of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity. In the 1630s, the owners of Teikov, princes Vasily and Alexei Prozorovsky, with the blessing of Metropolitan Hilarion, ordered the construction of a new church, made of stone, instead of a dilapidated wooden church. Thus, the side-altar became a separate church, also named after Saint Elijah.

The decorative design of the facades is also interesting: it is very rich and harmonious in its composition. Balusters, tongues, parebrik, stripping and other numerous elements of brick decor do not overload their variety at all, but, on the contrary, decorate the church, making it actually an encyclopedia of Russian ornamental design. A separate place is occupied by intricate tiles.

This temple was considered not only the most beautiful in the merchant town - its "calling card" was also a large mechanical clock with large Roman numerals, located on the bell tower and built, according to surviving data, in 1878 by a certain "master Karl Gelgard from the English city of Oldham." Everything was arranged in such a way that exactly every hour the bells were ringing over the square: first the small ones were overflowing, then the middle ones were connected, and at the end the largest bell came in.

As in our time, guests of Moscow specially come to Red Square to listen to the Kremlin chimes, so in tsarist times, residents from neighboring villages came to Teikovo to show the children the local clock and listen to the amazing bell ringing. Alas, the chimes of the church themselves have not survived - in the 1930s the clock stopped, and then they were removed altogether.

In 1927, the Bolsheviks closed the temple complex, having previously confiscated all church values. In April 1929, fighters against religion removed from the bell tower four large bells (with a total weight of 803 pounds) and seven smaller ones. The Ilyinsky Church itself was closed at the end of 1929.

During the entire Soviet period, services in the church were not conducted (for some time it was used as a warehouse). It resumed its work only after the collapse of the USSR: in 1991 it was re-consecrated and opened to believers.

How the largest temple appeared in the center of Moscow on the site of the largest pool.