How a unique wooden church in Kondopoga that survived the Livonians, Finns and Bolsheviks died today

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

It should be said that at one time the Assumption Church in the Karelian Kondopoga, unlike many other monuments of Russian wooden architecture, was very lucky. In the terrible revolutionary years, it was not dismantled into logs, it was not converted into a club, into a 45-meter tower of the temple, which stood for a long time without a lightning rod and did not get hit by lightning. And who would have thought that the life of the temple, as is often the case with people, would end in our time and so unexpectedly.

It is reliably known that at the very end of the XIII century the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kondopoga already existed - references to it are found in documents of that time. The archival sources of 1563 specify that the church is located near the village of Ondreeva Ostatki, “near the churchyard in the middle of the Lutyanovskaya stream”.

How the temple appeared

For the Russian North, the end of the 16th century was very difficult. The Livonian War was lost, and the Swedes ruled Karelia. The scribes of the early 1580s report the murder of a large number of local peasants and the burning of the Assumption Church.

But two years passed, and the temple was rebuilt. That Church of the Assumption had three altars and a "tent top". But in the "troubled times" of the early 1600s, this temple also burned down. And again he was reborn from the ashes. In the chronicles of that time, the temple in Kondopoga is described as "a warm church with a roof covered with iron, with a refectory."

By the 18th century, the church was already notably dilapidated - it was easier to dismantle it than to repair it. At that time, the construction of enterprises for the extraction of ore was going on in Karelia, the peasants had a hard time. It was then that the Kizhi uprising happened, after which it was decided to rebuild the Church of the Assumption. The fourth in a row.

Assumption Church of 1774

In 1774, the fourth church was built in Kondopoga, which has survived to this day. For the consecration of the church, new images were written for her, among which was the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God - an exact copy of the miraculous image. At first, the iconostasis was tyablov, and then it was closed with a carved structure in the style of Catherine's Baroque. Images from the iconostasis of the previous church, which had been dismantled earlier, were placed on the walls of the temple.

Temple complex of Kondopoga

By the 19th century, a whole temple complex appeared around the Assumption Church in Kondopoga: the Assumption Church itself, the winter five-domed Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the tent-roofed bell tower with six bells.

The fate of the temple after the revolution

When the Bolsheviks came to power, the already few valuables were withdrawn from the churches of Kondopoga - two silver sets for the Eucharist. The church bell tower was barbarously broken in the 1930s, being hooked up with a rope on the tent. By that time, five of the six bells had disappeared in an unknown direction, and the sixth were taken by representatives of the new government to the farmyard, where it became a signal.

The Mother of God Church of the Nativity was also in for a sad fate. At first, grain was dried in it, then they set up a collective farm club in it, and in the 1960s, when the Khrushchev wave of persecution of the church began, the temple was demolished.

The Church of the Assumption was more fortunate. In the 1920s, it was visited by the Onega expedition led by Igor Grabar, who proved that the temple is of incredible historical value. The temple was taken up by art critics. Thanks to this, the Assumption Church was not destroyed as a "legacy of the accursed past." It was restored twice, and in 1960 the Assumption Church was under state protection.

An amazing fact! During the Great Patriotic War, when Karelia was under the occupation of Finnish troops, services were held - both Orthodox and Lutheran. Since those times, many photographs have remained, and on them the Assumption Church can be seen with a 5-head winter church.

The beauty of the Assumption Church

At first glance, there was nothing unusual in the Assumption Church - the temple has a traditional architectural solution, the so-called "octagon on a quadruple". But the builders installed an elongated quadrangle, and on it not one, but two octaves at once, which successively expanded upward, and the structure was crowned with a huge tent of 18 crowns 15 meters high.

The church was huge, but at the same time it did not overwhelm with its forms, but seemed to be repelled from the ground, like a rocket - today unknown masters miraculously guessed the perfect shape of a rocket 250 years ago. Another feature of the church is the stingy decor. In this case, the craftsmen limited themselves to carving the posts on the porch and the cornices behind the pediment.

The main thing is the geometry of the forms. And the simplicity of the temple from the outside is compensated by the 5-tier iconostasis, which sharply contrasts with its gilding with wooden walls.

The last day of the temple

And on August 10, 2018, a disaster struck in Karelia: a unique monument of wooden architecture - the Assumption Church in the city of Kondopoga died in the fire. There are no words, how sorry and painful … And how terrible that they could not save this temple. The Dormition is called the "Swan Song" of wooden hipped-roof architecture.

The message about the church fire was received by the Ministry of Emergency Situations at 09:33. The first units arrived at 09:41. At the time of the arrival of the units, it was established that the building was on fire from the inside on an area of 60 m². There are no dead or injured.

Today experts say that it is quite possible to recreate the external appearance of the temple, but it will not be possible to return its unique interior decoration.

Video of eyewitnesses of the fire has already appeared on the web

And how many old, dilapidated churches all over Russia. One has only to see what it looks like abandoned church of the 16th century in the village of Kurba.