The Assumption Church (Ivanovo) is a lost historical monument

In the evening of November 18, 2015, a disturbing message arrived at the emergency attendant's desk in the city of Ivanovo-the Uspensky Church, which is one of the oldest surviving monuments of Russian wooden architecture, caught fire. When firefighting arrived at the scene, the flame spread across the entire roof of the building, so that there was a danger of its collapse. All efforts to save the unique construction were in vain, and the Assumption Church (Ivanovo) was destroyed by fire.

Monument of the past centuries

The Assumption Church in Ivanovo, where only charred logs were left today, was built at the end of the 16th century. Based on its construction, the builders laid a wooden frame-cage, which gave the foundation to contemporary art historians to attribute it to the temple buildings of the cage type - a term used in the history of architecture. In the old years, the same buildings as the Assumption Church in Ivanovo were widely distributed throughout the region.

Five centuries ago, the Pokrovsky Monastery was located on the place where the city Palace of Arts is located today. On its territory and was built this church, only it was called then Troitskaya. The first mention of it is found in documents relating to 1632, that is, to the times of the reign of the first tsar from the House of Romanov - the sovereign, Mikhail Fedorovich.

Transfer of the church to the Assumption Cemetery

In 1815, the monastery began the construction of a new stone church, and the Trinity Church, after dismantling it, was transferred to the territory of the nearby Uspensky cemetery. There in late November 1817, after the completion of assembly work, it was consecrated in honor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is why it was named Ouspensky.

After serving in the new place for more than six decades, the church became dilapidated, and the divine services in it were discontinued. Restore it did not try, since the graveyard by that time had already been built a stone church. So in time the church disassembled by the inhabitants for firewood would disappear, but the local admirer of the old days-the manufacturer who founded the city museum, DG Burylin-intervened.

On the Novo-Posadsky Pogost

On his initiative, the building was again dismantled and transported to another city cemetery - Novo-Posadskoye. Here it was not only harvested in its original form, replacing rotten logs with new ones, but they also attached a bell tower to it. In January 1906, in the presence of a large number of parishioners and all the famous residents of the city, the church was solemnly consecrated.

Renovated church, which became a museum

After the Bolshevik coup, the Assumption Church (Ivanovo) was placed at the disposal of the Renovation community - a schismatic movement within the Orthodox Church, which advocated the democratization of government, the modernization of services, and in everything that supported the new government. However, no matter how the Renovationists tried to enter into interaction with the Bolsheviks, in 1935 the church was taken away from them, the services were terminated in it, and the museum of the city of Ivanovo was opened in the building itself.

Parishioners even mourned for the loss of their ancient, many-generation temple, but thanked God for the fact that the Assumption Church (Ivanovo) was not destroyed, and hoped that one day they would hear the sound of her bells again.

Transfer of the church to the Old Believers

But before that it was very long. And in 1939, the authorities performed the usual sacrilege for those times - they set up an anti-religious museum in God's temple, sending the former expositions to another room. It existed until the war - when bombs began to fall on Russian soil, the authorities did not become atheistic. It is known that in order to raise the spirit of national self-consciousness among the people, Stalin went on some indulgences towards religion.

Assumption Church in Ivanovo was transferred to the Old Believer community, it registered a church council, but regular worship services were resumed only in 1946. Since that time the church officially belonged to the Belokrinskaya Old Believers hierarchy. He was again consecrated, this time in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Until the last day, the Assumption Church (Ivanovo) belonged to the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, as a co-religion of the old rite.

The death of a unique monument of antiquity

The fire in the Assumption Church in Ivanovo occurred during the restoration work carried out there , which began in 2013. In the process of restoring the interior of the premises under the layers of old plaster, the masters found fragments of the ancient painting, about the existence of which nothing was known. For a detailed study, the findings were suspended, and they were not supposed to continue until 2016. However, the tragedy that took place on the evening of November 18, 2015, crossed out all plans.

The fire in the Assumption Church in Ivanovo completely destroyed the building, excluding the possibility of its restoration. Today, the city authorities together with the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church plan to erect an exact copy of the lost church in its former place. It is even supposed to use the surviving fragments of a burned church while building it, and those that are unfit for installation are left as shrines of the future church.

The investigation conducted by the specialists of the Ministry of Emergency Situations concluded that the Assumption Church in Ivanovo burned down due to the closure of the electrical wiring, but the version of intentional arson is not excluded. The work of the commission is not yet complete, and the final results of the investigation have not been published. However, regardless of its conclusions, it should be noted with bitterness that the fire that occurred in Ivanovo caused irreparable damage to the historical and cultural heritage of Russia. The Assumption Church was not only a cult building, but also a unique historical monument of federal significance.