The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo, Dmitrovsky district: XX century and modernity (based on the materials of museum and personal archives)

Chuvilkina Yuliya Viktorovna ORCID: 0000-0002-1801-2785 PhD in Cultural Studies Senior Researcher at the State Historical and Art Museum "New Jerusalem" 143500, Russia, Moscow region, Istra, Novo-Ierusalimskaya emb., 1. chuvilkina.julia@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Image 1. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. 1952. A photo from the personal archive of a resident of the village A. N. Kalinina.

The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo traces its history back to the middle of the XVII century. For centuries, the owners of the village have been important people, which gives the researcher a reason to talk about the special status of these places. In the XVII century, the church was owned by the siege head Ivan Minich Nesterov, the duma nobleman Afanasy Ivanovich Nesterov, boyar Bogdan Matveyevich Khitrovo, Prince Fyodor Semyonovich Urusov. In the XVIII century - Fekla Urusova (widow of Prince Urusova), her daughter Marya Fedorovna Kurakina, and then her granddaughter Ekaterina Borisovna Kurakina, then the nobleman Ivan Ilyich Syanov and his widow Praskovya Fedorovna Syanova, their daughter Stepanida Ivanovna Tarakanova. Later - the nobleman Tishkov Ivan Tikhonovich, the landowner P. F. Silkova [Full name and patronymic unknown]. In the XIX century, the village was acquired by Elizaveta Andreevna Arakcheeva, and then it was owned by Prince Andrei Andreevich Golitsyn, together with Mikhail Ilyich Durnovo and Varvara Ivanovna Dregalova. The next owner is the philanthropist Varvara Yevgrafovna Chertova, and after her is the wife of the collegiate assessor Tovarova Alexandra Grigoryevna. In the second half of the XIX century, the village was bought by the merchant of the first guild Sergey Dmitrievich Shiryaev, and the last owners of the estate were his son Dmitry Sergeevich Shiryaev and his wife Lyudmila Semyonovna Shiryaeva^[6].

Over the long years of its existence, the church has been rebuilt more than once, the most significant changes were made to the architecture during the renovation in the middle of the XIX century. St. Nicholas Church, in need of restoration at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries, was carefully examined by specialists.

Before the work began, the church was inspected by the Academy of Arts, after which its metric was compiled.

1902, Batyushkovo^[1]:

"1. In the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker

2. According to the clerical records, it appears that this church was built in 1666 by the care of the landowner of the stolny and Duma nobleman Afanasy Ivanovich Nesterov.

3. Stone

4. The temple builder is a stolny and duma nobleman Afanasy Ivanovich Nesterov.

5. The church is located in the village of Batyushkova, built on a mountain overlooking the village.

6. The church has the shape of a quadrilateral, separated from the altars and divided in the middle by pillars. Two-tiered, with basements under the church.

7. The church has three altars, each of which consists of a semicircle. -

8. The height of the bell tower with a cross is 12 s., 1 church is 10.5 s., the length with a bell tower is 12.5 sazh. The width is 8 fathoms.

9. It is built of brick and plastered with lime..

10. The masonry is solid, there is no evidence of changes.

11. There are semi-columns on each corner smooth, there are no more decorations.

12. In the second tier of the church there is a cornice supported on columns, consisting of quadrilaterals and prominent teeth.

13. There are semicircles above the cornice, three on each wall

14. Tent roof with 4 slopes, painted with green paint

15. The lanterns are deaf, through, without decorations, arranged by the church, have necks without decorations and the main one is deaf.

16. On the church, the chapters numbered 5 and 3 are small separately above the altars within the aisles in the name. St. Sergius.Nicholas and Mina muche.

17. On the main ones there are iron ones painted with yellow paint, and on the bell tower above the altars there are wooden ones covered with tin.

18. The windows are oblong, with a slight rounding at the top, in the second tier they are lined with semicircles on which semicircles lie. In the lower tier, the windows are ordinary, the grilles are iron.

19. Three doors on the western, northern and southern sides of the temple, wooden joinery doors, and iron ones.

20. On the western porch, the pillars on which one side of the bell tower rests form the entrance from three sides, the southern one is arranged in the form of a porch with 4 columns, and the northern one is open.

21. In the Church of St. There is a boiler with a span and a lantern, slides for resonance, and a teacher in the church. Sergiya korobovy.

22. The tile floor is everywhere.

23. The wooden iconostases are carved, with gilding in the Nikolaevsky side chapel on a dark background, and in the side chapels of St. Sergius and Muche. Mines in scarlet. In the St. Nicholas Church there is a four-tiered one, and in the other chapels there are single-tiered ones.

24. The bell tower was built at the same time as the church, it has the shape of a hexagonal tent.

25. Tin. On the main bell there is an inscription: "In 1785, on April 1, this bell was cast in the village of Batyushkovo by the works of Stepanida Ivanovna Tarakanova. Lit at Nikifor Kalinin's factory in Moscow."

26. On the 2nd - "1743. Maya 3 days this bell was cast in the village of Batyushkovo, in the church of St. Nicholas by the labors and efforts of the widow Praskovya Fyodorovna / surname erased/ with her son Sergius and daughter Stefaneya.

27. There is not much wall painting.

28. The ancient list of the miraculous icon of B. M. Devneteruvskaya / Degtyarubskaya, Devterurskaya / the time of writing is unknown. This list is mentioned in the work "Glory to the Most Holy Theotokos", which lists all the miracles. icons of the Most Holy The Virgin Mary.

29. The architecture of the church is identical with the architecture of the Butyrskaya Church in Moscow.

The answers were given by the priest of the St. Nicholas Church of the village of Batyushkova, Alexander Troitsky. 1887. Moscow. Spiritual. the consistory".

After compiling the metric, detailed drawings of the church were created, containing a future repair project: changing the church fence, updating the painting and creating a heating system. Graphic archival materials from the beginning of the XX century, signed by the architect of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra A. A. Latkov, give an idea of the size of the church, the Holy Gate with a fence, the location of the priest's house, the churchyard and the owner of the estate (Shiryaev estate) at that time.

Image 2. MBU "Dmitrovsky Kremlin Museum-Reserve". MZDK KP OF 11865_1 General plan of the area and the temple in the name of St. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. After 1900

Image 3. MBU "Dmitrovsky Kremlin Museum-Reserve". MZDK KP OF 11865_2 Architect Latkov A. A. The project of the facade of the Holy gate and the fence of the Church of St. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo.1900

Image 4. MBU Architect Latkov A. A. Drawing of fragments of the gate and fence of the church in the name of St. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. 1900 Collection "Dmitrov Kremlin Museum-Reserve". MZDK KP OF 11865_3.

Image 5. Architect Markov N. P. The plan of the temple in the name of St. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo with indications of the alleged oven heating. 1902 Collection "Dmitrov Kremlin Museum-Reserve". MZDK KP OF 11861.

In the same year, the Moscow Archaeological Society received a request to carry out repair work in the church.

1902 June 10 days^[1].

«...The rector and the headman Nikolaevskaya, the village of Batyushkova of the church of the Dmitrovsky district are asked to allow them to carry out the following works: to arrange under the entire temple an oven heating in the existing basement, to make mosaic hearths in all temples, instead of the former leshad ones, to restore 3 iconostases in the temple, as well as icons in their former form, decorated with gilding, to beat off the old one and make plaster again under the wall paintings that will be on the walls and the dome of the temple, the frames, exterior doors and porches should be redone again, as well as the stairs serving as a passage to the bell tower. The said church was built in 1666 by the care of the landowner stolnik and the duma nobleman Afanasy Ivanovich Nesterov. The building is stone with the same bell tower ... ".

The iconostasis of the church was captured in photographs by family members of the famous restorer, architect and the largest expert on Russian architecture, Fyodor Fedorovich Gornostaev^{[3, 4]}. As a member of the archaeological society, he spent many years measuring and photographing historical monuments throughout the country.

The spiritual Consistory receives an answer.

«...In response to the attitude of 10 of this regarding the construction of the central village of Batyushkovo, Dmitrovsky district, I have the honor to answer the following:

1) Spiritual heating in the existing basement is allowed, however, so as not to go deeper below the foundation of the ancient walls and so that the proposed pipe is moved from the north side to the south side in place of the currently existing chimney.

2) It is allowed to make mosaic floors throughout the temple.

3) To restore iconostases and icons in the temple is allowed, however, on condition that the iconostases are not decorated with new carvings, as stated by Archyt. To Gornostaev, who was inspecting the church.

4) Knock down the old plaster and make a new one - it is allowed.

5) It is also allowed to make new frames, doors and a porch, so that the stone parts are not touched and the windows are expanded.

6) The stairs serving as a passage to the bell tower are allowed to be removed, but it is indicated that it is necessary to thoroughly clean the portal, which has so far been closed by these stairs. A new twisted iron staircase could be installed on the outside of the porch.

7) In the left, small chapel, it is allowed to deepen the stove, which serves as an altar" ^[1].

In 1902, work began on the installation of oven heating in St. Nicholas Church using chimneys of the newly built south Sergiev side chapel. The wooden floors were replaced with mosaic ones; the old plaster, painted only in a few places, was replaced with a new one and painted entirely; the old iconostasis was restored, obviously from the time of Bogdan Matveevich Khitrovo.

At the same time, external alterations were made in the church: windows, doors and exterior porches were redesigned; the wooden staircase leading to the bell tower was destroyed, while the western portal of the XVII century was cleared. In the late northern altar, in the name of the martyr Mina, a stove was deepened, which served as the altar of this chapel.

In 1913, a parish school and a brick factory of Vladimirova and Filippov worked in Batyushkovo^[5]. Until the October Revolution, the village of Batyushkovo was very sparsely populated. According to one of the old-timers, D. A. Shishkin, who held various administrative positions in the village council and the collective farm (later the state farm "Borets") since the late 1920s, in 1917 there were 12 courtyards in the village of Batyushkovo, and no more than 50 courtyards with parishioners of the assigned villages. At the end of the 1920s, the church parish more than doubled - by 60 yards (due to the addition of peasants from another large village to it);

Image 6. Peasants of the village of Batyushkovo. Personal archive of a resident of Batyushkovo village, A. N. Kalinina (Gudkova).

In the post-revolutionary years, the manor manor house began to work as a parish school. To date, the building has not been preserved, now to the south of the church there are the remains of a wooden house with a mezzanine from the turn of the XIX-XX century and fragments of an old lime park.

Image 7. A lesson at a rural school located in the building of the former Batyushkovo estate. The 1930s. Personal archive of a resident of Batyushkovo village, A. N. Kalinina (Gudkova).

Image 8. Manor house. The second half of the XIX century. Photographer Kistova N. A. 1974. The side facade. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.42.

Image 9. Manor house. The second half of the XIX century. Photographer Kistova N. A. 1974. The park facade. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.41.

St. Nicholas Church in Batyushkovo operated until the early 1930s. An important page in the history of the village was the appointment of Bishop Jonah (in the world of Ivan Ivanovich Lazarev) as a minister of the church^[12]. The rector of the Nevelsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, the Novgorod Skovorodsky Monastery, since 1911, Jonah has become the rector of the Stavropol Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery. Being at a very old age by that time, in 1926 he was retired and appointed to live in the village of Batyushkovo, where he served in the St. Nicholas Church. His presence in the church contributed to a large influx of parishioners from all over the country coming to the temple for spiritual guidance.

The construction of the Moscow-Volga canal, created at the beginning of the century by the efforts of prisoners of the Dmitrov Camp, claimed the lives of more than a million people working in inhumane conditions. Bishop Jonah sacrificed his life to help the priests who were imprisoned there. He was arrested in 1937 and sentenced to capital punishment for "anti-Soviet agitation". He was shot at the Butovo training ground of the NKVD on October 21, 1937^[8].

Image 10. Smchn. Jonah (Ivan Ivanovich Lazarev; 1869-1937). A photo from the investigative file. 1937

Difficult times for the church came in the following years. In 1939, the bells and crosses of the church of the village of Batyushkovo were transferred to the needs of the machine-building industry for melting. During the removal of the bells, a local priest, Sergei Pisarev, died of a heart attack^[7]. He is buried next to the church.

According to the recollection of a resident of the village Kalinina Alexandra Nikolaevna, the icons of the church were destroyed by the chairman of the local collective farm, Fedor Alekseevich Burmistrov. With his own hands, without any helpers, he removed each of the icons from the walls, took them outside the church fence, and piled them in one place in a pile, chopped them up with the butt of an axe. The fragments of the icons were disassembled into houses by the villagers. Maria Grigoryevna Gudkova, a resident of the village, was lucky enough to find the surviving icon of the Kazan Mother of God. The icon was kept in her house, and then, in the post-war years, it was presented by her to a village friend, an anti-aircraft gunner who returned from the front, Zinaida Ilyinichna Chervyakova. In the 1990s, after the resumption of church services of St. Nicholas Church in the village of Batyushkovo, Z. I. Chervyakova returned the icon to the church^[2].

The widespread closure of churches in the 1930s led to the expulsion of the monastic clergy from the monasteries. Some novices of the Spaso-Blachernae Monastery, closest to Batyushkovo, came to the village to work as nannies for young children. Hunger and poverty, felt everywhere during these years, overtook many. In particular, in the basement of St. Nicholas Church, before the confiscation of church property, a resident of the Spaso-Blachernae monastery of Reuben (Rufima) lived. After the closure of the church, she lived in a barn near the manor house, but after she was evicted and from there she was forced to settle in a barrack near the ferry pier on the Moscow - Volga canal, where she spent the last years of her life^[2].

The church utensils and interior decoration of the church were mostly preserved until the spring of 1941. But due to the fact that the church was robbed twice in a decade (despite the systematic replacement of iron bars on windows and locks), precious stones and other valuables were not preserved. In the spring of 1941, the state confiscation of church property was carried out.

Since the spring of 1941, the church building was used as a food warehouse (wheat, vegetables, meat, feed, etc. were stored). After the Great Patriotic War, farm buildings of the state farm "Borets" appeared at the entrance to Batyushkovo: a weighing room, a hay barn, a granary. The church was not repaired. In the 1960s, the roof of the central altar and the corner of the floor of the south aisle collapsed, so the altar barrier of the church and the chapel of the Mine was replaced with a capital wall so as not to violate the integrity of the warehouse. By the beginning of the restoration in 1968, the condition of the church was in disrepair.

Image 11. Restoration of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (St. Nicholas Church) in the village Batyushkovo, Moscow region. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.6.

Image 12. Restoration of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (St. Nicholas Church) in the village Batyushkovo, Moscow region. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299-38 l 19.

Image 13. Restoration of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (St. Nicholas Church) in the village Batyushkovo, Moscow region. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299-38 l 16.

Image 14. Restoration of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (St. Nicholas Church) in the village Batyushkovo, Moscow region. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l. 27.

Image 15. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. The southern portal. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.35.

Image 16. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. The northwest corner of the quad. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.37.

Image 17. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. The interior of the refectory. View of the south wall. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.36.

Image 18. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. The northeast corner of the quad. View from inside the refectory. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP OF 5299/38. l.38.

Image 19. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. The interior of the church. View of the altar barrier. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP 5299/42. l. 36.

Image 20. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Batyushkovo. The southern portal of the temple part is hidden by a late chapel. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP 5299/42. l. 37.

The restoration was led by architect Yavorovskaya Nonila Petrovna[Under the leadership of N. P. Yavorovskaya, the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Porechye (1968-1969), the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign in Kuzminsky (1968-1971), the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Batyushkovo (1968-1971) were restored]. The first published report on the restoration tells the story:

"The clerical records refer to the time of the church's construction as 1666. The monument has been rebuilt since its inception. The main changes to its original appearance should include the replacement of a four-pitched floor covering, apparently made in the middle of the XIX century; the rebuilding of the altar part, the extension of the south aisle with a porch, the rebuilding of the bell tower.

Despite significant alterations, the monument is of great artistic value. By the beginning of the work, i.e. by 1968, the building was in an extremely disrepair: the heads and drums were dilapidated, the kokoshniks were cut down, the wooden roofs of the refectory and the temple part were completely rotted, the facade decor was almost completely destroyed, the arches of the altars were destroyed, the completion of the bell tower was lost, and the bell tower was attached more than even, 30 cm from its axis wall the refectory, on which the bell tower was supported by its military part, was severely destroyed.

In accordance with the planned task of the OHR inspection; at the monuments, it was decided to carry out a number of priority works to bring the monument out of disrepair. The in-situ data turned out to be enough to restore the heads, drums and the floor covering.

The next stage of the work was to cover the roof of the refectory and strengthen its walls, after which work began on the bell tower. The foundations were examined, reinforced pylons were brought in, the decor was cleaned and the completion was restored. In 1971, it is planned to complete the restoration of the decoration of the refectory and temple part, portals, window frames and begin work on the restoration of the apses, which requires additional research and solutions. Currently, the SFR has been exhausted and it is necessary to make an estimate for the completion of the work"^[9].

Image 21. Drawing of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, 1970s. The Shchusev State Museum of Architecture. KP 5299/41. l. 29.

In the early 1990s, the temple burned. In 1997, it was restored and handed over to the faithful, and in 1999, the iconographer V. Kharlamov painted a new image of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the church. Later, in 2002, by the iconographer O. Gundeeva for the local row of the iconostasis (to the left of the royal gates) another image of the same iconography was created. The icon was supplemented with seventeen stamps depicting the akathist of the Mother of God^[13].

Currently, the church is operational, Sunday and festive divine services are held in it, and the building has been completely restored, the rector is Archpriest Alexander Gennadievich Frolkin. In 2016, Juvenal (Poyarkov), Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna, performed the great consecration of the temple and led the Divine Liturgy in it^[14].

In 2018, the society of Expert Heritage LLC, represented by experts Purisheva E. V., Insurance L. D., Trapeznikova A. I., conducted a historical and cultural examination, as a result of which the temple was recognized as an object of cultural heritage:

"On the outskirts of the village, until the end of the 1980s, a wooden house with a mezzanine was located to the south of St. Nicholas Church, built at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, a preserved element of an ancient manor - an object of cultural heritage of regional significance "Batyushkovo Manor". Now it is almost completely lost. Fragments of the foundation have been preserved. To the south of the church there is also an ancient manor park, with preserved individual trees. On the west side of the location of the manor house there is a preserved section of the driveway to the manor. Next to this road (currently a local passage leading to the church) there is an obelisk – an object of cultural heritage of regional significance "Mass grave of Soviet soldiers, 1941-1942". To the east of the village, the highway of the Pillar Road from Dmitrov has been preserved... "[Act of the state historical and cultural expertise of the project for the protection of the cultural heritage site of federal significance "Nikolskaya Church with Bell Tower, 1680", located in the village of Batyushkovo, Dmitrovsky urban district of the Moscow region. // The Main Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow region. Official website].

The expert opinion emphasizes the importance of preserving the visual links of the monument with the historically developed rural buildings, forming an overview of the monument from various sides.