The history of the architecture of the Orthodox church. Old Believer look

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The exhibition ended in Moscow "Canon and Out of Canon" dedicated to the architecture of modern temple construction. On this occasion, we duplicate the previously rewritten sketch about new trends in this area from modern architects and an extremely informative article about the history of Old Believer temple building from the Burning Bush magazine. The magazine itself, which became the prototype of the Old Believer Thought website, can be downloaded at the end of the article: it was one of our most successful issues!

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In order to digest the culture shock from what they saw, we offer readers of our site valuable material from our parishioner, artist and architect Nikola Frizin. This article was written by him in 2009 specifically for the Burning Bush magazine, which was published by an initiative group of Rogozh parishioners within the framework of the Youth Affairs Department of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Ways of Old Believer temple building

Nicola Freezin

Every reader knows that a Christian church is a house of prayer and a house of God. But can anyone say why the temple looks like this, and how the Old Believer temple should ideally look like?

Throughout Christian history, although temple architecture existed, it was not regulated in strict canons, as happened with worship, hymnography, and icon painting. Architecture initially, as it were, “fell out” of the canonical field. It was not determined by a complex system of rules and canons.

From the moment the Old Believers appeared to the end of the 19th century, there was no proper architecture of the Old Believers because there was no need for any special correctness of architecture. Few requirements of a general nature were made only to the internal structure of the temple, paintings and icons. However, there is something elusive in the Old Believer churches that distinguishes them from any other ...

In the proposed article, the author examines the legacy of the Old Believers in the field of temple building of the 17th–19th centuries and the prospects for its development in our time. It is interesting that the author gives quotes from researchers of the temple building from the 20th century.

And the development of the "historical style" falls on the 20th century, and the heyday of the Old Believer temple building fell precisely on the 20th century. That is, only the last 100 - 170 (since the time of eclecticism) years, the problem of the identity of Russian temple architecture in general arose - even in the community of architects. The Old Believers, however, perceived this problem only after the possibility of building temples appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. The points of perception of tradition at the beginning of the 20th century are very well covered by the author.
Will the tradition begun a hundred years ago be accepted, or will the temple building return to its original indifference? Rather, it will be both.

A. Vasiliev

In the last 15-20 years, for the first time since 1917, the Old Believers got the opportunity to build churches. Temple building is not great, few communities can afford such an expensive undertaking. However, some temples have been built and will certainly be built more. In the hope of the emergence of new Old Believer churches, one can ask the question: what should modern churches be like, how do they relate to the Old Believer and Old Russian tradition. To comprehend this, it is useful to look back, to see what modern Old Orthodox Christians inherited from their ancestors of the 17th-19th centuries, what from the pre-schism period, and in what, in fact, this heritage is expressed.

In Byzantium, from which Christianity came to Russia, a perfect temple interior was created, ideal for prayer and worship. The main type of the temple, centric, cross-domed, had a deep symbolic and theological significance, maximally corresponded to the peculiarities of the sacrament of the Liturgy performed in it.

In any temple, the space created by the architect dictates a certain course of action to the person in it. The main spatial motif of the centric Byzantine and Old Russian temple is the anticipation. It is the centric church that most of all corresponds to Orthodox worship and faith itself.

The outstanding art historian A.I. Komech wrote about Byzantine cross-domed churches: “He who enters the temple, after taking a few steps, stops without being prompted by anything to real movement. Only a glance traces the endless flow of curvilinear forms and surfaces, going vertically (a direction not available to real movement). The transition to contemplation is the most essential moment of the Byzantine path to knowledge. The Byzantine temple interior carries the idea of ​​eternity and immutability, it is perfect and strict. Here there is no development in time or space, it is overcome by a sense of accomplishment, achievement, stay.

In such a temple, a Christian stands at prayer, like a candle in front of an image. Everyone who prays is not moving anywhere, but is standing before God. The temple is the earthly sky, the center of the universe. The temple space stops the worshiper, takes him out of the vain, somewhere torn and running world of everyday life, transfers him to an ideal state of heavenly rest. Wherever a person stands in such a temple, the space “centers” him, he finds himself in the center of the Universe and stands before God. He himself stands, and he himself listens to the word of God, and he himself turns to Him in prayer (although at the same time he is among the same prayers and prays with them). In some churches, the space even “compresses” a person from all sides, does not allow him to move, completely concentrating his mind on the contemplation of the mountain world, causes a feeling of reverence and awe of the soul, a person almost physically experiences being in the house of God. Temple, man and prayer are in amazing harmony. It can be said that the temple space is formed by prayer, and vice versa, it itself determines the nature of this prayer and the whole mode of action of the person praying.

Such is the ideal of the temple, which was given by Byzantium and Ancient Russia. The architectural forms correspond to the character of worship in it as much as possible. But since there is nothing permanent and immovable in the earthly world, it is difficult to maintain the perfection achieved once. Departure from the ideal of the ancient Christian temple, the degeneration of principles began long before the schism. In the middle of the 17th century and later, the situation in temple architecture, from the point of view of the correspondence of temple architecture to worship, was far from ideal. Under these conditions, the Old Believer church building arose.

Old Believer art and literature began to take shape simultaneously with the emergence of the phenomenon itself, called Old Belief. From the moment of the split of the Russian Church, the keepers of ancient Orthodoxy had to justify their separation from the new lovers and give material embodiment to their spiritual life (often in exile, in new uninhabited places). That is, to write liturgical and apologetic books, icons, to make church utensils, and also to erect buildings for prayer and the performance of the sacraments - churches, chapels or prayer rooms. This is how Old Believer art appeared.

AT major centers Old Believer life - on Vyga, on Vetka, in Guslitsy and others, art schools were formed that inherited and developed primarily the traditions of Russian art of the 17th century, but at the same time did not shy away from modern artistic trends imported from Europe. Some of these schools have gained national significance. So, for example, Vygov cast icons, remarkable for their beauty and quality of execution, also called “Pomor casting,” spread throughout Russia. The design of books, iconography, woodcarving, and church singing reached a high level of perfection.

Among the church arts that flourished in the Old Believer environment, there was not only architecture. That is, the construction of temples and chapels existed, but this construction was not permanent, systemic and professional activity which is architecture. Temples and chapels were built when circumstances allowed, rarely and not in all the habitats of the Old Believers.

With such meager temple construction, neither the Old Believer architectural school, nor the complex of traditions for the construction and decoration of temples was formed. There is no set of signs by which one could say with complete certainty that the temple (or chapel) that possesses them is unambiguously Old Believer, and that it cannot be New Believer, Catholic or otherwise.

The lack of their own architectural traditions among the Old Believers is simply explained: the Old Believers were almost always forbidden to build temples and chapels. For a common prayer, they gathered for the most part in prayer rooms - buildings without external signs of a temple. However, besides an abundance of icons and candlesticks, worshipers also often did not have internal signs. It was much easier to arrange a prayer room without external “evidence of a schism” in your own house or public building, indistinguishable in appearance from a barn, than to build a temple or a chapel. Much less often, it was possible to build chapels and very rarely - full-fledged temples. The rarity of churches is explained not least by the absence or small number of priesthoods and, accordingly, the rarity of the Liturgy. For prayer in the lay order, it was enough for chapels that did not have an altar part.

To erect something resembling a temple in appearance, the Old Believers could either with the connivance of the local authorities (in the event that the authorities looked at it “through the fingers”), or without asking permission, but somewhere in the impenetrable wilderness, where no bosses can't reach. But a church that is more or less significant in size and decoration can only appear in a fairly populated area or settlement, and a large church is not needed in a secret and remote skete. In addition, if you need to hide from constant persecution and persecution, you cannot take away a church or a chapel with you, like an icon or a book.

It is completely pointless to build a temple that requires a lot of money and organizational efforts for the construction, and then immediately give it to the persecutors for desecration. For these reasons, the Old Believers were engaged in architecture at rare moments when circumstances favored it. There were no architects of their own due to their almost complete uselessness and inability to engage in professional activities, if such architects suddenly appeared. Thus, we have to state: the Old Believer architecture as a separate trend in Russian architecture does not exist.

Nevertheless, although the Old Believer architecture was not created in an explicit form, in some areas the Old Believers had a strong influence on the New Believer environment, in particular on the appearance of the temples built by the New Believers. First of all, this concerns the Russian North. A significant part of its population was made up of Old Believers-bespriests, while the other part, although formally belonged to the synodal church, practically largely adhered to the old church and national customs. Including in architecture. So, almost all wooden architecture of the Russian North of the XVIII-XIX centuries. in many respects it is old believer.

Although almost no wooden Old Believer churches are known, and all the famous northern churches were built by the New Believers, their forms are absolutely Russian, inheriting and developing Orthodox pre-schism traditions in architecture. At that time, throughout the country, baroque and classicism brought from Europe dominated in church building, introducing Protestant and Catholic features into religious consciousness and aesthetics. In the North, until the middle of the 19th century, wooden architecture developed in a purely national (Orthodox) direction.

In the scientific literature, it is customary to explain this by the remoteness of the North from the cultural and economic centers of the 18th–19th centuries and by the traditions that have been conserved for this reason. This is certainly true, but the influence of the Old Believers, the high authority of the Old Believers and the tradition of Vyg, in our opinion, played an important role here.

This was the situation in the North: wooden chapels and temples were built in the national tradition.

In the cities, due to the lack of their own architectural traditions, the Old Believers were forced to build in those forms that were around - in their contemporary architecture. The well-known desire of the Old Believers to follow the traditions of their ancestors and antiquity was difficult to implement in architecture. Already in the 18th century, traditions in stone architecture were pretty much forgotten, and due to the lack of a history of architecture in those days, architects and customers, enlightened representatives of the Old Believers, had a very approximate and mythical idea of ​​ancient and primordial forms.

Love for antiquity was expressed in the desire to reproduce ancient forms in their then understanding. From the end of the 18th century, “national” trends periodically appeared in Russian architecture - romanticism, historicism. They were popular with the Old Believers-customers, who tried to order temples in the "national style" that existed at that time. An example is the temples of the Transfiguration Cemetery, the Church of the Nativity of Christ at the Rogozhsky cemetery. They are built in the national-romantic direction of classicism.

The abundance of fanciful carved details, red and white painting, lancet arches and other signs of the Gothic style - this is exactly what the architects of the late 18th - early 19th centuries imagined ancient Russian architecture. A tribute to her passion was paid by the largest architects - V. Bazhenov and M. Kazakov. Such saw it and customers. But "pure" classicism did not frighten the merchants and community leaders. Confirmation of this is the Pokrovsky Cathedral of the Rogozhsky cemetery.

The main cathedral church of the Old Believers-priests in Rogozhskaya Sloboda. Built in 1790-1792. It is assumed that the architect M.F. was the author of the temple. Kazakov. Before the restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Church of the Intercession at the Rogozhsky cemetery was the most extensive of Moscow churches.

Some churches of the late 18th - mid-19th centuries. built in the baroque tradition. This architecture was distributed mostly in the provinces. Such are the temples in Novozybkovo.

During the period of the XVIII - XIX centuries. the construction of churches was non-systematic, temples were rarely erected. Therefore, it is difficult to identify any common features and trends in the Old Believer architecture of that time.

Only after the granting of religious freedoms in 1905 did mass Old Believer church building begin. The forces accumulated over decades of secret existence rushed out, and during the 12 years of the "golden age" hundreds of temples were built throughout the country. Many of them were built by professional architects. It was during this period that we can talk, if not about specifically Old Believer architecture, then at least about its Old Believer features that were formed then.

There are several trends, or paths, of the Old Believer architecture of that time, which, in general, coincided with the development of all Russian architecture.

Eclecticism

Dominating the whole second half of XIX century in Russia, the style was eclectic. This style was very common, existing from the 1830s until the 1917 revolution. Eclecticism replaced classicism when it had exhausted itself. The architect has the right to choose the style, direction of work, as well as combine elements from different styles in one building.

An architect can build one building in one style, and another in another. Such an arbitrary combination of heterogeneous features in a work of art is usually recognized as a sign of decline, degradation of the respective trends or schools.

There are wonderful buildings in eclecticism, but basically eclecticism is a creative dead end, the inability to say one's own word in art, the absence of a path, meaning, movement and life. Approximate reproduction of forms and details from different styles, their mechanical connection without internal logic.

By and large, the same person cannot work in different styles, but works in one. Style cannot be faked. As the poet said: "As he breathes, so he writes ...". And the style of the era was eclecticism - a kind of impersonality and a hodgepodge. They worked in it, and no decoration borrowed from the wonderful styles of the past could save from the emptiness inherent in eclecticism.

Pseudo-Russian style, historicism

In Russian church architecture, including the Old Believer, one thing was very popular
from the directions of eclecticism - historicism, also called the pseudo-Russian style. It appeared in the 1850s, and received special development in the 1870-80s, when interest arose in national traditions in art.

The Russian architecture of the 17th century, the so-called “Russian patterned architecture”, was mainly taken as a model. But only external forms were reproduced according to the idea of ​​them at that time. And the idea was still rather vague. And although some actual knowledge base about ancient buildings was accumulated, there was no understanding of the essence of this architecture. Brought up on classicism, architects and artists did not perceive a fundamentally different architecture. The principles of constructing space, forms, details and volumes were the same as in the prevailing eclecticism around. The result was dry and devoid of expressiveness buildings, although outwardly intricate.

Historicism played a positive role in the second half of the 19th century, and by the beginning of the 20th century, that is, by the time of the mass construction of temples by the Old Believers, it had completely outlived itself, looked like some anachronism. At that time, historicism was rarely built, and mostly in the provinces. It was, though high-quality, but cheap architecture, with a touch of official patriotism, and architects of far from the first hand or just artisans worked in it. Some churches were maintained in pure historicism, observing a certain “purity of style” and using only pseudo-Russian motifs, but in most others, pseudo-Russian features were mixed in the most incredible way with classical, Renaissance, Gothic and others.

The Trinity Church turned out to be the last cult building of Vladimir. Residents call it “Red” because it is built of red brick, the so-called cross masonry. It combines many styles in its architecture, and rather belongs to pseudo-Russian. The red color and aspiration to the sky are reminiscent of the bonfires on which adherents of ancient piety were burned.

An example of this style is Historical Museum and Upper Trading Rows (GUM) in Moscow. In the 1960s, they wanted to demolish the church, but the public, with the active participation of the writer V. A. Soloukhin, opposed it, and it was converted from a hostel into a crystal museum.

"Byzantism"

In addition to the "Old Russian" motifs in historicism, there was a "Byzantine" direction, as unrelated to Byzantium as the pseudo-Russian direction to the architecture of Muscovite Russia. In the "Byzantine style" the Church of the Intercession was built on Novokuznetskaya Street in Moscow.

Modern

Copying external forms and details without understanding the essence of ancient Russian buildings did not give the expected effect of the revival of national forms and traditions in art. All this soon became clear to architects, and they moved away from direct copying of ancient monuments. And they took the path not of copying, but of creating a generalized image of an old Russian church. This is how the Art Nouveau style appeared, in particular, the Art Nouveau of the national historical direction, which is also sometimes called the neo-Russian style. Stylization became one of the main principles of shaping in Art Nouveau: not literal copying, but revealing and emphasizing the most characteristic features of ancient buildings.

Baroque, classicism and eclecticism (which is closely related to historicism) are not the most suitable styles for an Orthodox church. The first thing that catches your eye in these styles is completely un-Christian, extra decoration in the temple, dating back to pagan antiquity and not rethought by Christianity in any way.

But the non-Christian decor inherent in styles imported from Europe is not the biggest problem. The very space and volumes were far from Orthodoxy. Attempts to combine the principles of constructing an Orthodox liturgical space with the canons of classicism are, as a rule, unsuccessful. In some churches built in pure classicism, according to the priests (New Believers), it is frankly inconvenient to serve.

Classicism as a style oriented towards antiquity uses certain forms, which arose mainly in ancient times. In classicism, there are no forms and compositional techniques traditional for an Orthodox church. The ancient Greeks did not know the dome, and in Christian architecture the dome is the most important, one might say, iconic thing. Classicism is a very rational style, while Christian architecture is largely irrational, just as faith itself is irrational, based not on logical constructions, but on Divine Revelation.

How to rethink in classicism such an irrational form as church chapter? What would an apse look like in classicism, protruding beyond the rectangular, clear and logical volume of the temple? How to arrange five domes in classicism? Russian architects found answers to these questions, but from a Christian point of view, they are completely unsatisfactory.

Both historicism and eclecticism created space and details on the same classical basis. And ancient Russian architecture is fundamentally non-classical. It does not use an order system. It has internal harmony, logic, clarity and hierarchical subordination of parts, coming from antiquity, but outwardly, in details, the order is almost not manifested.

An attempt to revive the medieval principles of constructing an architectural form and space was made by modern architects. It was from this desire that the style arose. He contrasted eclecticism with integrity and organicity, unity and purity of style in every detail and in the principles of creating space.

The best architects of the country worked in the Art Nouveau style. It was to them that the richest Old Believer communities and philanthropists tried to order temple projects. This is how the bell tower of the Rogozhsky cemetery appeared, which can be recognized as a masterpiece of architecture of the early 20th century and one of the most beautiful bell towers in Moscow. Its features are discerned in a number of other Old Believer bell towers built later by less prominent architects. Apparently, the customers recommended that they focus on the building they liked. The facade of the bell tower is decorated with relief images of fabulous birds of paradise: Sirin, Alkonost and Gamayun.

Many wonderful temples were built for the Old Believers by the architect I.E. Bondarenko. The authorship of the most outstanding architect of the Moscow Art Nouveau F.O. Shekhtel owns a temple in Balakovo (now transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church). In the same style, the St. Nicholas Church on the square of the Belorussky Station and the Sretensky Church on Ostozhenka were built.

1. 2. 3.

2. Church of the Holy Trinity in Balakovo(Saratov region) arch. F.O. Shekhtel 1910-12 Contrary to historical justice, it was transferred to the ROC MP.

3. Old Believer Church of St. George the Victorious(village of Novo-Kharitonovo, at the Kuznetsov factory)

St. George's Church with a ceramic altar was built on the occasion of the centenary of the victory over Napoleon at the expense of the Kuznetsovs, the main care was provided by Ivan Emelyanovich Kuznetsov. It should be noted that during the time of the church reforms of Patriarch Nikon, tent churches were recognized as inappropriate " church rank”, and their construction has been prohibited since 1653, with the exception of the construction of hipped bell towers. But the Old Believers considered this architecture theirs.

Moscow. Temple in the name of the Presentation Vladimir icon Mother of God on Ostozhenka. 1907-1911 arch. V.D. Adamovich and V.M. Mayat

Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker near Tverskaya Zastava- Old believer's temple; built on the site of a wooden chapel on Tverskaya Zastava Square.

The first project of the temple was carried out by I. G. Kondratenko (1856-1916) in 1908 by order of the Old Believer merchant I. K. Rakhmanov, who owned a plot on the spit of Butyrsky Val and Lesnaya Street in the style of white-stone Vladimir architecture. For Kondratenko, who built dozens of tenement houses, this was the first project in temple construction. The project was then approved by the city government, but construction was postponed for unknown reasons. Six years later, the community called on another architect - A. M. Gurzhienko (1872 - after 1932), who completed a completely different project. For Gurzhiyenko, a specialist in roadworks and reconstruction of old buildings, this was also the first project of the temple.

Probably, by the time Gurzhienko was called, the zero cycle had already been completed, since the external outlines of the building exactly coincided with the Kondratenko project. But the temple itself is made in the style of early Novgorod architecture, approaching the historical Church of the Savior on Nereditsa, while inside it is pillarless (Kondratenko has six pillars). The hipped bell tower of the temple also imitates Novgorod belfries. Construction during the First World War was financed by P. V. Ivanov, A. E. Rusakov and others. At that time, two more large churches in the Russian style were located near the Tverskaya Zastava: the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky (architect A. N. Pomerantsev, 1915) on Miusskaya Square and the Exaltation of the Cross Church at the Yamsky Schools (1886). Both are destroyed.

By the beginning of the 20th century, researchers of ancient Russian architecture had achieved serious success, they discovered and explored a large number of monuments of ancient Russian architecture of different schools and periods. On the basis of this knowledge, a trend arose in architecture that inherited the principles of historicism, but at a new, much more advanced level of understanding. Architects tried to build a temple in some ancient "style" (Novgorod, Vladimir-Suzdal, etc.), reproducing details and some compositional techniques with literal accuracy. The accuracy was such that some elements could not be immediately distinguished from the ancient ones. There was no longer an eclectic mishmash or fictional details, everything was done with archaeological precision. It was more difficult or even completely impossible, according to different reasons replicate temple space and structure in a similar way.

The architects did not raise their hand to literally copy any ancient temple - it would be plagiarism. Therefore, they tried to create something of their own in the "ancient style", copying the details and hanging them on their own volume. But the details of the ancient temple do not exist on their own, they grow organically from the inner space, they cannot be torn off and stuck to another wall. They have their own, obscure to us now logic and meaning. And the interior space just turned out to be bypassed by the attention of architects. As a result, one external appearance of an ancient Russian temple is obtained, a form without content, although sometimes very effective, and also interesting for us to study now.

Since the Old Believer art is very characterized by the desire to copy the forms consecrated by antiquity, whether it be temples or icons, some customers did not fail to turn to architects who professed such a literal approach.

The most striking example is the Church of the Assumption on Apukhtinka, built on the model of the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. Thus, during the period of mass Old Believer church building in 1905-1917, two main styles dominated, as in the architecture of the whole country - eclecticism and modernity (in their national-historical version). Then, as you know, the opportunity to build temples disappeared, and with it the temple-building traditions in architecture disappeared, and in many respects the old architectural school itself.

The Old Believer Assumption Cathedral on Apukhtinka at the time of its closure in 1935 and in the early 2000s (dormitory)

Read more about the temple building porcelain makers Kuznetsovs.

XXI Century

15-20 years ago the situation in the country changed again. The oppression ended, and believers of various hopes began to build temples again. The Orthodox Christian Old Believers also took up this to the best of their ability.

And then the question arose: what should these temples be like? This question is equally important for the New Believers, and since they have more opportunities, it has received more development from them. Tradition, knowledge and concepts were so lost that at the competition announced in the late 1980s for the design of the temple of the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Russia, some works were submitted without altars.

Soviet architects did not know why the temple was needed, they perceived it as some kind of external decoration, a sign, a monument, and not as a place for celebrating the Liturgy.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, the New Believer historian and publicist V.L. Makhnach said that the interrupted and lost tradition of temple building would be resumed at the point of break, that is, the revival would begin with the Art Nouveau style and other trends that existed in 1917. And he turned out to be right.

We can see all these currents in modern Russian temple building - for the most part, either ridiculous eclectic churches are being built, or more stylistically pure, oriented towards the Art Nouveau tradition. The path of copying old buildings, attempts to work in some kind of "Old Russian style" has not been left. In this direction, today the Siberian Old Believers are building a cathedral in Barnaul in the forms of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture.

Now, as in the beginning of the 20th century, the main motto of temple building is “return to the origins”, to classical antiquity. At the beginning of the XX century. "Novgorod-Pskov style" was taken as an ideal. And the Old Believers of the "golden age", and the scholars of that time considered him a model.

E. N. Trubetskoy in the famous work “Speculation in Colors” wrote: “... the temple personifies a different reality, that heavenly future, which beckons to itself, but which at present humanity has not yet reached. This idea is expressed with inimitable perfection by the architecture of our ancient churches, especially those of Novgorod.". At the same time, it was not explained why the Novgorod churches are better than all the others, nothing concrete was given to substantiate this idea.

The fact is that as of the beginning of the 20th century, Novgorod and Pskov churches were mostly preserved in almost their original form. There were many of them, they represented two powerful architectural schools of the XIV-XVI centuries. Monuments of other ancient Russian schools of the same period were not so widely known and numerous. All early Moscow churches were rebuilt beyond recognition. Almost nothing remained of the Tver school. The Rostov school was heavily rebuilt and survived only on the periphery of the Rostov colonization of the North. The pre-Mongolian churches of Kievan Rus were also rebuilt in the spirit of the Ukrainian Baroque. The Belozersky school was not known at all. The Vladimir-Suzdal churches were more or less preserved and had been restored by that time. But they are so far away in time from Muscovite Russia that they could not be perceived as their own, relatives. In addition, it is much more interesting to stylize the powerful sculptural forms of Novgorod and Pskov architecture in modernity than the refined and weightless motifs of Vladimir-Suzdal.

Wooden domes for the temple in Novokuznetsk were made by a master from Altai. They were lined with aspen, which later darkens under the sun and will look like old silver. This is an old approach: I didn’t want to make gold and attract attention, but I wanted people to wake up with curiosity,” says Leonid Tokmin, curator of the construction of the temple.

In our time, again, apparently according to the established tradition, Novgorod motifs in temple building are very popular. At the same time, the efforts of architects, both modern and contemporary, are mainly aimed at giving the temple an “Old Russian” appearance. Simply put, a kind of theatrical scenery is being created, although it often has outstanding artistic merit.

But Christian worship is performed inside the temple, and not outside. And in good Christian architecture, the appearance of the temple directly depended on the internal space, it was formed by it and completely corresponded to it. But for some reason, no attention is paid to the creation of a truly Christian space in the spirit of an ancient Russian church.

I would like to believe that, having achieved serious success in stylizing the external appearance of the temple, the architects will move on to the next stage of the revival of Orthodox architecture. It seems that an appeal to the origins, to classical antiquity, should be not only in the temple decoration, but most importantly - in space-planning solutions. It is necessary to comprehend and create a modern version of the temple space based on the achievements of ancient Russian and Byzantine architects.

Nicola Freezin,

old believer magazine Burning bush", 2009, No. 2 (3)

We invite readers to familiarize themselves with the electronic version of this issue of the journal. It turned out to be one of the best and contains a lot of useful information.

PDF version of the Burning Bush magazine:

The rapid development of temple construction in our time, in addition to its positive beginning, also has a negative side. First of all, this concerns the architecture of the erected church buildings. There are frequent cases when architectural solutions depend on the taste of the donor or the rector of the temple, who do not have the necessary knowledge in the field of temple architecture.

The state of modern church architecture

Opinions of professional architects on the problem of modern church architecture are very different. Some believe that the tradition interrupted after 1917 should now be started from the moment it was forced to stop - from the Art Nouveau style of the early twentieth century, in contrast to the modern cacophony of architectural styles of the past, chosen by architects or customers according to their personal taste. Others welcome innovation and experimentation in the spirit of the modern architecture of secular buildings and reject the tradition as outdated and out of touch with the spirit of modernity.

Thus, the current state of the architecture of Orthodox churches in Russia cannot be considered satisfactory, since the correct guidelines for the search for architectural solutions for modern churches and the criteria for assessing past experience, which is often used under the guise of following tradition, have been lost.

The necessary knowledge of the traditions of Orthodox church building is being replaced by many with thoughtless reproduction of “samples”, stylization, and tradition is understood as any period of domestic church building. National identity, as a rule, is expressed in copying traditional techniques, forms, elements of the external decoration of temples.

In the domestic history of the 19th–20th centuries, there was already an attempt to return to the origins of Orthodox church building, which in the middle of the 19th century led to the emergence of the Russian-Byzantine style, and at the beginning of the 20th century, the neo-Russian style. But these were the same "styles", only based not on Western European, but on Byzantine and Old Russian samples. With the general positive direction of such a turn to historical roots, nevertheless, only “examples” as such, their stylistic characteristics and details served as a support. The result was imitative works, the architectural solution of which was determined by the level of knowledge of the "samples" and the degree of professionalism in their interpretation.

In modern practice, we observe the same pattern of attempts to reproduce "samples" from the whole variety of diverse heritage without penetrating into the essence, into the "spirit" of the designed temple, to which the modern architect-temple builder, as a rule, has nothing to do, or he does not have enough for this. sufficient education.

The buildings of churches, which in Orthodoxy, like icons, are sacred for believers, with a superficial approach of architects to their design, cannot possess the energy of grace, which, of course, we feel when contemplating many ancient Russian churches built by our spirit-bearing ancestors in a state of humility, prayers and reverence before the shrine of the temple. This humbly repentant feeling, combined with fervent prayer for the sending down of God's help in the creation of the temple - the house of God, attracted the grace of the Holy Spirit, with which the temple was built and which is present in it to this day.

The creation of each Orthodox church is a process of co-creation of man with God. An Orthodox church should be created with the help of God by people whose work, based on personal ascetic, prayerful and professional experience, is consistent with the spiritual tradition and experience of the Orthodox Church, and the created images and symbols are involved in the heavenly prototype - the Kingdom of God. But if a temple is designed by non-church people only with a glance at the photographs of temples in textbooks on the history of architecture, which in these textbooks are considered only as “architectural monuments”, then no matter how “correctly” a temple is executed, conscientiously copied from a similar “model” with necessary revisions related to modern design requirements, then the believing heart, seeking true spiritual beauty, will certainly feel the substitution.

It is extremely difficult to objectively assess what is being built today only on the basis of formal features. For many people who often come to the temple with a heart hardened during the years of atheism, perhaps they do not have sharp thoughts about the discrepancy between what is happening in the temple and what they see in front of them. People who are not yet fully included in church life, like people with an undeveloped ear for music, will not immediately feel these false notes. Details familiar to the eye and often an abundance of decorations under the guise of splendor can overshadow untrained spiritual vision and even to some extent please the worldly eye, without raising the mind to grief. Spiritual beauty will be replaced by worldly beauty or even aestheticism.

We need to realize that we should not think about how best to continue the "tradition", understood from the point of view of architectural theorists, or to create an earthly beautiful temple but how to solve the tasks facing the Church, which do not change, despite any changes in architectural styles. Temple architecture is one of the types of church art, which is organically included in the life of the Church and is intended to serve its purposes.

Basics of Orthodox Church Architecture

1. traditional

The immutability of Orthodox dogmas and the rite of worship determines the fundamental immutability of the architecture of an Orthodox church. The basis of Orthodoxy is the preservation of the teachings of Christianity, which was enshrined Ecumenical Councils. Accordingly, the architecture of an Orthodox church, which reflects this unchanging Christian teaching through the symbolism of architectural forms, is extremely stable and traditional in its basis. At the same time, the variety of architectural solutions of temples is determined by the features of its functional use (cathedral, parish church, memorial church, etc.), capacity, as well as the variability of elements and details used depending on the preferences of the era. Some differences in temple architecture observed in different countries professing Orthodoxy are determined climatic conditions, historical conditions of development, national preferences and national tradition associated with the peculiarities of the national character. However, all these differences do not affect the basis of the architectural formation of an Orthodox church, since in any country and in any era, the dogma of Orthodoxy and the worship for which the temple is built remain unchanged. Therefore, in Orthodox church architecture, there should not be any “architectural style” or “national trend” at its core, except for “universal Orthodox”.

The convergence of temple architecture with the style of secular buildings, which took place in the period of the New Age, was associated with the penetration of the secular principle into church art in connection with the negative processes of the state-imposed secularization of the Church. This affected the weakening of the figurative structure of church art as a whole, including the architecture of the temple, its sacred purpose to be an expression of heavenly prototypes. Temple architecture at that time largely lost its ability to express the innermost content of the temple, turning into pure art. Temples were perceived in this way until recently - as monuments of architecture, and not as the house of God, which is “not of this world”, and not as a shrine, which is natural for Orthodoxy.

Conservatism is an integral part of the traditional approach, and this phenomenon is not negative, but a very cautious spiritual approach to any innovation. Innovations are never denied by the Church, but very high demands are placed on them: they must be revealed by God. Therefore, there is a canonical tradition, that is, following the patterns accepted by the Church as corresponding to its dogmatic teaching. The samples used in the canonical tradition of temple building are necessary for architects to imagine what and how to do, but they have only a pedagogical value - to teach and remind, leaving room for creativity.

Today, “canonicity” often means the mechanical implementation of some mandatory rules that fetter creative activity architect, although there has never been any "canon" as a set of mandatory requirements for temple architecture in the Church. The artists of antiquity never perceived tradition as something fixed once and for all and subject only to literal repetition. The new that appeared in temple building did not radically change it, did not deny what was before, but developed the previous one. All new words in church art are not revolutionary, but successive.

1. Functionality

Functionality means:

The architectural organization of a meeting place for members of the Church for prayer, listening to the word of God, the celebration of the Eucharist and other sacraments, united in the rite of worship.

Availability of all the necessary auxiliary facilities associated with worship (panomarka, sacristy, church shop) and the stay of people (dressing room, etc.);

Compliance with technical requirements related to the stay of people in the temple and the operation of the temple building (microclimatic, acoustic, reliability and durability);

Cost-effective construction and operation of church buildings and structures, including construction in stages using optimal engineering and construction solutions, the necessary and sufficient use of external and internal decoration.

The architecture of the temple should organize the space of the temple to create conditions for worship, conciliar prayer, and also, through the symbolism of architectural forms, help to understand what a person hears in the word of God.

1. Symbolism

According to the church theory of the relationship between the image and the prototype, the architectural images and symbols of the temple, when performed within the framework of the canonical tradition, can reflect the prototypes of heavenly existence and attach to them. The symbolism of the temple explains to believers the essence of the temple as the beginning of the future Kingdom of Heaven, puts before them the image of this Kingdom, using visible architectural forms and means of pictorial decoration in order to make the image of the invisible, heavenly, Divine accessible to our senses.

An Orthodox church is a figurative embodiment of the dogmatic teaching of the Church, a visual expression of the essence of Orthodoxy, an evangelical sermon in images, stones and colors, a school of spiritual wisdom; a symbolic image of the Divine Himself, an icon of the transfigured universe, the heavenly world, the Kingdom of God and paradise returned to man, the unity of the visible and invisible world, earth and sky, the earthly Church and the heavenly Church.

The form and arrangement of the temple are connected with its content, filled with Divine symbols, revealing the truths of the Church, leading to heavenly prototypes. Therefore, they cannot be arbitrarily changed.

1. the beauty

An Orthodox church is the center of all the most beautiful things on earth. It is magnificently decorated as a place worthy for the celebration of the Divine Eucharist and all the sacraments, in the image of the beauty and glory of God, the earthly house of God, the beauty and majesty of His Heavenly Kingdom. Grandeur is achieved by means of architectural composition in synthesis with all types of church art and the use of the best possible materials.

The main principles for constructing the architectural composition of an Orthodox church are:

The primacy of the internal space of the temple, its interior over the external appearance;

Construction of the internal space on the harmonious balance of two axes: horizontal (west - east) and vertical (earth - sky);

Hierarchical construction of the interior with the dominance of the under-dome space.

Spiritual beauty, which we call splendor, is a reflection, a reflection of the beauty of the heavenly world. Spiritual beauty that comes from God should be distinguished from worldly beauty. The vision of heavenly beauty and co-creation in "synergy" with God made it possible for our ancestors to create temples, the splendor and grandeur of which were worthy of heaven. In the architectural solutions of ancient Russian churches, the desire to reflect the ideal of the unearthly beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven is clearly expressed. Temple architecture was built mainly on the proportional correspondence of parts and the whole, and decorative elements played a secondary role.

The high purpose of the temple obliges the temple builders to treat the creation of the temple with the utmost responsibility, to use all the best that modern building practice has, all the best of the means artistic expressiveness, however, this task must be solved in each specific case in its own way, remembering the words of the Savior about the jewel and the two mites brought from the bottom of the heart. If works of ecclesiastical art are created in the Church, then they must be created at the highest level that is conceivable under the given conditions.

1. In the field of architecture of a modern Orthodox church

The guideline for modern temple builders should be a return to the original criteria of church art - the solution of the problems of the Church with the help of specific means of temple architecture. The most important criterion for evaluating the architecture of the temple should be the extent to which its architecture serves to express the meaning that was laid in it by God. Temple architecture should not be regarded as an art, but, like other types of church creativity, as an ascetic discipline.

In the search for modern architectural solutions for a Russian Orthodox church, the entire Eastern Christian heritage in the field of church building should be used, not limited only to the national tradition. But these samples should not serve to copy, but to penetrate the essence of the Orthodox church.

When building a temple, it is necessary to organize a full-fledged temple complex that provides all the modern multilateral activities of the Church: liturgical, social, educational, missionary.

Preference should be given to building materials based on natural origin, including brick and wood, which has a special theological justification. It is advisable not to use artificial building materials that replace natural ones, as well as those in which there is no human manual labor.

1. In the field of decisions made by the Church

Development of "exemplary" economical projects of temples and chapels of various capacities, meeting the modern requirements of the Church.

Involvement of professional temple architects in the work of diocesan structures for temple construction. Establishment of the post of diocesan architect. Interaction with local architectural authorities in order to prevent the construction of new churches that do not meet the modern requirements of the Church.

Publications in church publications of materials on issues of church building and church art, including new designs of churches with an analysis of their architectural and artistic advantages and disadvantages, as was the case in pre-revolutionary Russia.

1. In the field of creativity of architects-temple builders

The architect-temple-builder must:

Understand the requirements of the Church, that is, express the sacral content of the temple by means of architecture, know the functional basis of the temple, Orthodox worship in order to develop a planning organization in accordance with the specific purpose of the temple (parish, memorial, cathedral, etc.);

To have a conscious attitude towards the creation of a shrine temple as a sacral act close to church sacraments, like everything that is done in the environment of the Church. This understanding should be consistent with the way of life and work of the architect-temple builder, his involvement in the life of the Orthodox Church;

To have deep knowledge of the fullness of the traditions of universal Orthodoxy, the heritage of all the best that was created by our predecessors, whose spirit was close to the spirit of the Church, as a result of which the temples created corresponded to the requirements of the Church, were conductors of her spirit;

Possess the highest professionalism, combine traditional solutions with modern construction technologies in their work.

Mikhail KESLER

Calendar

The end of persecution in the 4th century and the adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire as the state religion led to a new stage in the development of temple architecture. The external, and then the spiritual division of the Roman Empire into Western - Roman and Eastern - Byzantine, also influenced the development of church art. In the Western Church, the basilica is the most widespread.

In the Eastern Church in the V-VIII centuries. the Byzantine style was formed in the construction of temples and in all church art and worship. Here were laid the foundations of the spiritual and external life of the Church, since then called Orthodox.

Types of Orthodox churches

Temples in the Orthodox Church were built by several types, but each temple symbolically corresponded to church dogma.

1. Temples in the form cross were built as a sign that the Cross of Christ is the foundation of the Church, by the Cross mankind is delivered from the power of the devil, by the Cross the entrance to Paradise lost by the forefathers is opened.

2. Temples in shape circle(a circle that has neither beginning nor end, symbolizes eternity) speak of the infinity of the existence of the Church, its indestructibility in the world according to the word of Christ

3. Temples in shape eight-pointed star symbolize the star of Bethlehem, which led the Magi to the place where Christ was born. Thus, the Church of God testifies to its role as a guide to the life of the Age to Come. The period of the earthly history of mankind was calculated in seven large periods - centuries, and the eighth is eternity in the Kingdom of God, the life of the future age.

4. Temple in shape ship. Ship-shaped temples are the most ancient type of temples, figuratively expressing the idea that the Church, like a ship, saves believers from the disastrous waves of worldly navigation and leads them to the Kingdom of God.

5. temples mixed types : cruciform in appearance, and inside, in the center of the cross, round, or rectangular in external shape, and inside, in the middle part, round.

The scheme of the temple in the form of a circle

The scheme of the temple in the form of a ship

Cruciform type. Church of the Ascension beyond the Serpukhov Gates. Moscow

The scheme of the temple built in the shape of a cross

Cruciform type. Church of Barbara on Varvarka. Moscow.

Cruciform shape. Temple of Nicholas the Wonderworker

Rotunda. Smolensk Church of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra

The scheme of the temple in the form of a circle

Rotunda. Church of Metropolitan Peter Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery

Rotunda. Church of All Who Sorrow at Ordynka. Moscow

Temple diagrams in the form of an eight-pointed star

Ship type. Church of Dmitry on the Blood in Uglich

The scheme of the temple in the form of a ship

Ship type. Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills. Moscow

Byzantine temple architecture

In the Eastern Church in the V-VIII centuries. formed Byzantine style in the construction of temples and in all church art and worship. Here were laid the foundations of the spiritual and external life of the Church, since then called Orthodox.

Temples in the Orthodox Church were built in different ways, but each temple symbolically corresponded to the church doctrine. In all types of temples, the altar was certainly separated from the rest of the temple; temples continued to be two - and more often three-part. The dominant in Byzantine temple architecture remained a rectangular temple with a rounded ledge of altar apses extended to the east, with a figured roof, with a vaulted ceiling inside, which was supported by a system of arches with columns, or pillars, with a high domed space, which resembles the internal view of the temple in the catacombs.

Only in the middle of the dome, where there was a source of natural light in the catacombs, they began to depict the True Light that came into the world - the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the similarity of Byzantine churches with the catacombs is only the most general, since the ground churches of the Orthodox Church are distinguished by incomparable splendor and greater external and internal detail.

Sometimes they rise several spherical domes topped with crosses. An Orthodox church is certainly crowned with a cross on the dome or on all domes, if there are several of them, as a sign of victory and as evidence that the Church, like all creation, chosen for salvation, enters the Kingdom of God thanks to the Redemptive Feat of Christ the Savior. By the time of the Baptism of Russia in Byzantium, a type of cross-domed church was taking shape, which combined in a synthesis the achievements of all previous directions in the development of Orthodox architecture.

Byzantine temple

Byzantine church plan

Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice

Byzantine temple

Cross-domed church in Istanbul

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Italy

Byzantine church plan

Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice

Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul)

The interior of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople

Church Holy Mother of God(tithe). Kyiv

Cross-domed churches of Ancient Russia

The architectural type of a Christian temple, formed in Byzantium and in the countries of the Christian East in the 5th-8th centuries. It became dominant in the architecture of Byzantium from the 9th century and was adopted by the Christian countries of the Orthodox confession as the main form of the temple. Such well-known Russian churches as: Kyiv Sophia Cathedral, Sophia of Novgorod, Vladimir Assumption Cathedral were deliberately built in the likeness of Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople.

Old Russian architecture is mainly represented by church buildings, among which cross-domed churches occupy a dominant position. In Russia, not all variants of this type became widespread, but buildings of different periods and different cities and principalities Ancient Russia form their own original interpretations of the cross-domed church.

The architectural design of the cross-domed church is devoid of the easily visible visibility that was characteristic of basilicas. Such architecture contributed to the transformation of the consciousness of ancient Russian man, elevating him to an in-depth contemplation of the universe.

While preserving the general and basic architectural features of Byzantine churches, Russian churches have a lot of originality and originality. AT Orthodox Russia several distinct architectural styles emerged. Among them, first of all, the style that stands closest to the Byzantine stands out. it toclassical type of white stone rectangular church , or even basically square, but with the addition of an altar part with semicircular apses, with one or more domes on a figured roof. The spherical Byzantine form of dome cover was replaced by a helmet-shaped one.

In the middle part of small temples there are four pillars that support the roof and symbolize the four evangelists, the four cardinal points. In the central part of the cathedral church there may be twelve or more pillars. At the same time, the pillars intersecting between them form the signs of the Cross and help to divide the temple into its symbolic parts.

The Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir and his successor, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, sought to organically incorporate Russia into the universal organism of Christianity. The temples erected by them served this purpose, placing believers before the perfect Sophian image of the Church. Already the first Russian churches testify spiritually to the connection between earth and heaven in Christ, to the God-human nature of the Church.

Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir

Cross-domed church of John the Baptist. Kerch. 10th century

Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir

Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin

Church of the Transfiguration in Veliky Novgorod

Russian wooden architecture

In the 15th-17th centuries, a significantly different style of temple construction from the Byzantine one developed in Russia.

Oblong rectangular ones appear, but certainly with semicircular apses to the east, one-story and two-story churches with winter and summer churches, sometimes white-stone, more often brick with covered porches and covered arched galleries - walkways around all walls, with a gable, four-slope and figured roof, on which they show off one or more highly raised domes in the form of domes, or bulbs.

The walls of the temple are decorated with elegant decoration and windows with beautiful carvings made of stone or with tiled platbands. Next to the temple or together with the temple above its narthex, a high hipped bell tower with a cross at the top is erected.

Russian wooden architecture acquired a special style. tree properties like building material, determined the features of this style. It is difficult to create smooth forms of a dome from rectangular boards and beams. Therefore, in wooden temples, instead of it, there is a pointed tent. Moreover, the church as a whole began to give the appearance of a tent. This is how wooden temples appeared to the world in the form of a huge pointed wooden cone. Sometimes the roof of the temple was arranged in the form of a set of wooden domes with crosses ascending cone-shaped upwards (for example, the famous temple on the Kizhi churchyard).

Church of the Intercession (1764) O. Kizhi.

Assumption Cathedral in Kem. 1711

Church of St. Nicholas. Moscow

Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord (1714) Kizhi Island

Chapel in honor of the Three Saints. Kizhi Island.

Stone hipped churches

The forms of wooden temples influenced stone (brick) construction.

They began to build intricate stone hipped churches, resembling huge towers (pillars). The Pokrovsky Cathedral in Moscow, better known as St. Basil's Cathedral, is rightfully considered the highest achievement of stone tent architecture, a complex, intricate, multi-decorated building of the 16th century.

At the heart of the plan, the cathedral is cruciform. The cross consists of four main churches, located around the middle, fifth. The middle church is square, the four side churches are octagonal. The cathedral has nine temples in the form of cone-shaped pillars, which together make up one huge colorful tent in general outline.

Tents in Russian architecture did not last long: in the middle of the 17th century. the church authorities forbade the construction of tent churches, since they differed sharply from the traditional one-domed and five-domed rectangular (ship) churches.

Hip architecture of the 16th-17th centuries, originating in traditional Russian wooden architecture, is a unique direction of Russian architecture, which has no analogues in the art of other countries and peoples.

TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

Temple architecture occupies an exceptional place in architecture. Based on the same principles and methods of construction, church buildings are strikingly different from civil buildings.

Even the best examples of secular buildings - luxurious palaces, cannot compete in beauty and grandeur with grandiose temples, which in any culture were considered the apogee of the development of building art.

One cannot but agree with this, admiring the architecture of, for example, the majestic St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg or the almost fabulous St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. The best aspirations of the human spirit are embodied in temple architecture.

Many temples, due to their beauty, grace and monumentality, are not only the main sights of cities, but can also claim to be their historical symbol. For example, the ancient Russian city of Vladimir is inconceivable without the Assumption Cathedral, and Sergiev Posad near Moscow - without the temple complex of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra.

The architecture of the temple does not express the usual desire to organize a residential and comfortable space (which we see in civil architecture), but an attempt by a person to express his path to God through monumental architecture. Temple construction is saturated with symbolism, as an expression of that faith that inspires a person to dedicate his best creation to his Creator.

Temples in Russia were built in different styles: from wooden architecture to the majestic Empire style. But an invariable feature of Orthodox churches is its symbolic correspondence Orthodox faith. In architecture, this was expressed in the form of church buildings, which, as a rule, at the base of the foundation have either a Cross as a symbol of salvation, or a circle as a symbol of eternity, or resemble a ship as ancient symbol The Church saving her children in the raging sea of ​​worldly passions.

Church architecture is an integral part of Russian culture. However, remarkable examples of temple architecture are presented not only in Russia. For example, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has temples of amazing beauty: this is the majestic St. Alexander Church in Paris, which Russian writers abroad so loved to visit, and the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Munich, which is strict in its brevity, and the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville.

The temple differs from secular buildings not only in rich symbolism and elegance of architectural forms, a church building is, first of all, a place where the soul meets God, a place of special state of mind- prayers. Visiting the temple not only in your native land, but also being on tourist trips abroad, you join the richest spiritual culture of Orthodoxy.

Temple architecture, of course, is a special area of ​​architecture, in which there is an invisible soul of the masters who decorate the temple inside. At all times, the most important stage in the construction of temples was the internal wall and ceiling painting. The subtle artistic taste of the fresco masters, multiplied by a reverent attitude to the theme of the work, eventually created real masterpieces of church painting, which to this day serve as a standard of human spirituality and self-awareness.

FORMATION OF TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

The Lord, who created man from the dust of the earth, gave him the opportunity to know Himself in the entire universe surrounding man. According to the words of the Apostle Paul, “His invisible things, His eternal power and Divinity… are visible through looking at the creatures” (Rom. 1:20). The wise Creator introduces man into the world He created as into a beautiful temple, in which “everything that breathes glorifies the Lord” (Ps. 150:6).
In the pagan sense, the temple was in the narrow sense the dwelling of some "deity". This manifested the limitations of paganism, which did not comprehend that God, being above all material things, simultaneously abides in the whole world.

Christianity, which became the dominant worldview in the Byzantine Empire from the 4th century, did not follow the path of destroying the architectural achievements of antiquity: the Church only processed the experience accumulated over the centuries in the light of Christ's Truth. Christianity was preached as far as possible without violating the established local traditions and way of life. The first buildings in which prayer meetings and services of ancient Christians took place after gaining freedom of religion were basilicas.

The basilica is a typically Roman type of building. These structures were erected in the centers public life ancient cities and were the places of its concentration. Here decisions of the city authorities were announced, legal proceedings were carried out, exchange operations were carried out, trade deals were concluded, business meetings were arranged. The fact that Christian services were transferred to buildings with these functions suggests that the Church, after being legalized on a national scale, is entering the very center of public life. Ancient Christians began to prefer the basilica also because buildings of this type were never used for pagan ritual purposes.

The layout of the basilica is fully consistent with the rank of Christian worship: the interior of the building is usually divided by two rows of columns into three parts (naves); the western apse, unlike similar structures of pre-Christian times, is usually absent, and a transverse nave (transept) is attached to the eastern apse to expand the chancel; the central nave is much higher and wider than the lateral ones, in addition, it has additional lighting due to two rows of windows in the upper part. The right nave is reserved for men, the left for women, as required by the ancient charter of the Church; the bishop is given central location, and in pre-Christian times, the same place was usually occupied by a judge. These observations point to the social structure of the Church. In contrast to the pagan understanding of the temple as the house of the "deity", the Christian temple is a place of worship, "domus ecclesia" - the house of the Church as an organization of believers. Great importance acquires the interior decoration of a Christian church: the walls protect believers from the outside world, revealing the spiritual world through frescoes and mosaic images, and all attention is directed to the holy altar, where the Sacrament of the Eucharist is performed. In the 4th century, the construction of basilica churches took place mainly in the East.

Along with the basilicas important place in ancient Christian architecture, buildings of the centric type occupied: mausoleums, baptisteries, temples. The ancient Christian mausoleums were a direct continuation and development under new conditions of the architecture of late antique mausoleums of the beginning of the 4th century. The upper volume of these structures was initially divided by deep niches, and later by windows, due to which a new architectural element appeared - a light drum, which served as the supporting basis for the dome.

From the first centuries of its existence, the Church of Christ established the custom of celebrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the places of suffering of the holy martyrs. In the III-IV centuries, over the burial places of the holy martyrs, Christians began to build temples (martyriums), outwardly resembling ancient mausoleums; at the same time, there was a tendency to turn the burial structures of pre-Christian times into Christian churches.

At the same time, the formation of the architecture of the temples of the cross-centric type took place. The earliest of the buildings of this kind is the temple of San Lorenzo, which has survived to this day, built in the 70s of the 4th century in Milan. This building is square in plan, on each side of which semicircular apses are attached, which gives it a peculiar shape of a cross. Although some architectural analogies can be traced in some structures of the late Roman period (for example, separate rooms of palace complexes and baths), one cannot but see in the appearance of this type of temples the desire of Christian architects to apparently glorify the Honest and Life-Giving Cross Christ is the instrument of human salvation and the symbol of eternal victory over death and the devil.

The idea of ​​a Christian church as a reflection of the Kingdom of God, where everything comes from Christ and returns to Christ, was subsequently fully embodied in the unsurpassed masterpiece of the 6th century - the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which became the basis for the formation of the Christian architectural canon for many centuries. The achievement of this ideal was preceded by many years of creative search by church architects, evidence of which is centric churches, in which the main idea of ​​the Cross of the Lord is clearly visible as the center and foundation of the entire Christian worldview.

Middle Ages and temple architecture

The life of a medieval person is closely connected with the earth. The aesthetic moment is widely developed in its culture. This type of person is self-sufficient, whole. In the heroic epic, in epics, we have before us strong natures, in which the word does not disagree with the deed, they are direct, sincere; with what more people has power, the more he bears responsibility. The culture of the Middle Ages is not based on the individual. People live by the norms intended for the whole team. Freedom is a negative category, it is understood as willfulness. These features of thinking were reflected in architecture, primarily temple architecture.

In the Russian Middle Ages, processes are taking place that are in many respects similar to European ones. In Europe, the Middle Ages begins with the destruction of the monuments of Antiquity - in Russia, pagan art is anathematized. Latin language remains in the Catholic Church the language of worship - Orthodox worship is conducted in Church Slavonic (a modified Old Church Slavonic) language (this is important, since the cultural values ​​of previous eras are available primarily to people close to the church). Christianity is gradually becoming the dominant ideology, and both in Europe and in Russia, this process goes from south to north.

It is not purely our national feature that the Russian art of the Middle Ages was formed in the clash of two ways - patriarchal and feudal, and two religions - paganism and Christianity. The same thing is happening in Europe: dual faith, especially in the north and west, the gradual transition of pagan deities into the category of lower, demonic ones (and in our country, the functions of the old gods were often attributed to the saints).

The Russian Middle Ages begins with the christening of Russia. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this event. Together with Christianity, Russia adopted certain foundations of culture from Byzantium. In particular, stone architecture began to meet the new state and ideological tasks, samples of which were taken from Byzantium. A type of cross-domed church was created there, the basis of which is a rectangular room with four or more pillars in the middle, dividing the interior into nine parts. The center of the temple is the domed space, where light enters through the windows in the drum. Cells covered with cylindrical vaults adjoin the domed space, forming a cruciform basis of the plan. The corner parts are covered with domes or barrel vaults. The entire central space in the plan forms a cross. The dome appears in Byzantium in the Justinian period, even before the cross dome (Sophia of Constantinople).

In the same place, a dome system on sails is formed. Three faceted or semicircular apses adjoin the building on the eastern side. An altar is placed in the middle. In the western part there is a room of the second tier - the choirs. The transverse space in the western part is called the vestibule, the narthex.

However, relying on the traditions of Byzantine art, Russian masters created their own national art, their own forms of temples, wall paintings and iconography, which cannot be confused with Byzantine, despite the common iconography.

An analysis of the historical evolution of Russian Orthodox church building and an assessment of contemporary issues in this area of ​​architecture are given. The issues of shaping are considered in connection with the dogma, with the state of piety in a particular era. Special sections are devoted to the interaction of the architecture of the temple and its environment.

Introduction (A.S. Shchenkov)

Section I Historical sketch of Russian Orthodox church building

Chapter 1. Some General Trends in Forming the Image of an Orthodox Church(L.S. Shchenkov)

Chapter 2 Temple of the pre-Mongol era(T.N. Vyatchanina)
The cultural situation in Russia at the beginning of temple construction
Sofia Cathedrals
Temples of the Vladimir-Suzdal land and the Russian temple-building paradigm of the 12th century.

Chapter 3 Early Moscow architecture and hesychasm(T.N. Vyatchanina)
culture of time. Hesychasm
Culture-forming potential of hesychast teaching
Typology and figurative concept of the interior space of the early Moscow church
Light in the architecture of the early Moscow church
High iconostasis
Tectonics and plasticity of the early Moscow church

Chapter 4 Spiritual and religious life of Russia in the second half of the XV-XVI centuries. and its architectural reflection in the tradition of temple building(T.N. Vyatchanshsh)
"Josephites" and "non-possessors". Ways of the Russian architectural and iconographic tradition of the XV - the first half of the XVI century. in the light of these spiritual currents
The main trends of Russian religious life in the XV - the first half of the XVI century.
Some "projections" of new trends in piety on the artistic thinking of the era
Forms of interaction of spiritual and architectural processes in temple building in the 15th - first half of the 16th century.
"Russian Sovereign Orthodoxy" and Its Reflection in the National Temple Tradition of the 16th Century
sovereign ideology
The influence of the "sovereign" consciousness on the artistic thinking of the era
Mechanism and stages of the composition of the elements of the national language in the official temple architecture of the XVI century.

Chapter 5 Church building in the 17th century(T.N. Vyatchanina)
Cultural and religious consciousness and temple building in the first half and middle of the 17th century.
Some features of the cultural and religious consciousness of the era
Posad parish church of the first half - the middle of the 17th century. and Russian social and religious consciousness
Architectural Enterprises of Patriarch Nikon
"Spiritual restructuring" of the second half and the end of the 17th century and its "projection" on temple architecture
Features of the cultural and religious consciousness of time
Architectural Imaging of New Features of Spiritual Consciousness in the Second Half of the 17th Century
Decorativism of the second half of the 17th century and its speculative foundations

Chapter 6 Temples in the XVIII - first thirds of XIX in.(A.S. Shchenkov)
The nature of church piety in the synodal era of the 18th - the first third of the 19th centuries
Characteristic features of temple building

Chapter 7 Architecture of temples of the 1830-1910s(A.S. Shchenkov)
General cultural and ecclesiastical prerequisites for changes in the direction of temple building in the second quarter of the 19th century.
The search for a new architectural expressiveness in the middle of the century
Church building and views on church art in the 1870-1890s
Changes in artistic culture and in the church view of temple building in the late XIX - early XX centuries.
Church building in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
Some results of the historical review of Russian temple building

Chapter 8 Temple in the Russian city of the XI-XX centuries(A.S. Shchenkov)
Pre-Petrine period
City of classicism
The city of the middle of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century

Section II. Orthodox church in Russia at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries

Chapter 9 Modern temple building in Russia
General cultural situation and some features of church consciousness at the end of the 20th century. (A.S. Shchenkov)
Methodological problems of the analysis of modern Orthodox church building (A.S. Shchenkov)
The practice of domestic temple building (A.S. Shchenkov)
Iconography and tectonics of temples
Volumetric-spatial structure of temples
The nature of the interiors
Foreign practice of Orthodox church building (K.V. Rytsarev)

Chapter 10 Temples in new residential areas of the late XX - early XXI century.(N.E. Antonova)
Temples and urban verticals in Russian cities of the 20th century
Temples in the construction structure of new districts
Temple and its immediate architectural environment

Chapter 11 Temples in reconstructed historical quarters(N.E. Antonova)
Temples as compositional dominants in the historical part of the city
Architectural-spatial interaction of temples and surroundings in historic urban areas
Using the features of temple architecture in the image of modern urban planning dominants

Conclusion (A.S. Shchenkov)