A joint charity trip took place to the Efremovsky Boarding School (Tula region). Panorama of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsovo

The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsov is an Orthodox church in the Obruchevsky district (South-Western Administrative District) of Moscow. Located on the territory of Vorontsovsky Park. Belongs to St. Andrew's Deanery. Thrones: main - the Life-Giving Trinity, chapel - St. Sergius of Radonezh. There is a Sunday school at the church. A worship cross was installed next to the temple in memory of the victims of Chernobyl.

The building of the Trinity Church is the oldest in the Vorontsov estate complex, built in the middle of the 18th century. Researchers in the 1920s (see OIRU) believed that the temple was built in 1807 in an octagonal garden pavilion. However, the restoration of the 1990s. revealed that all existing parts of the building, including the wings extending beyond the octahedron, previously believed to have been reconstructed in the 19th century, were laid out of the same brick at the same time; At the same time, baroque decor appeared. Presumably, the building was originally a “winter”, heated guest house, while the 18th-century estate itself was a summer residence, not suitable for year-round living. In shape, it is quite traditional for park architecture of the 18th century; only the rounded western wall, in which the main entrance to the temple is located, is unusual. The building has been used as a parish church since at least 1807 (it dates to the earliest documented rebuilding of the estate as a whole). In 1838, a two-tier bell tower was added to the temple (probably on the site of an earlier one). After 1928 the temple was closed; the bell tower was destroyed, the cemetery surrounding the temple was destroyed, and a park was laid out in its place. By the 1980s the temple was turned into ruins, completely losing the dome and parts of the facade. As a result of restoration, which began in the winter of 1990, the temple was revived. Divine services resumed on May 23, 1990, the first Divine Liturgy after a long break was held on October 1, 1991.

The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsov is the oldest building in the historical and architectural estate “Vorontsov Park” in the South-West of Moscow. A magnificent garden and park ensemble in the 18th - 19th centuries. belonged to the princes Repnin, and received its name from the first owner of the land - boyar Fyodor Voronets back in the 14th century. The real organizers of the estate and the temple in it were the Repnins.

The wife of one of the owners of the estate of Prince N. Repnin-Volkonsky in 1807 took the blessing of Metropolitan Platon to build a church (in the summer, part of the estate was rented out to the Moscow nobility as dachas, and it was inconvenient to travel to the village of Troparevo for services). Photo from the 1980s Some researchers believe that construction began not from scratch, but in an octagonal garden pavilion adapted for a temple. Restorers claim that the entire building, including the “wings” and baroque decor, is made of the same material, which means it is not the result of reconstruction.

Unfortunately, the name of the architect of this temple has not been established, but its shape is quite typical for landscape architecture of the 18th century: an octagon with a domed vault, a lantern and a drum supporting a small dome. So, the question of dating the construction remains open, but this does not at all prevent one from enjoying the beauty of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity and the unusualness of its western wall (such rounding is quite rare), where the main entrance is located. 1990

In 1812, the temple suffered the sad fate of many other Russian churches desecrated by the French. The renovation lasted for 4 years, and only on October 17, 1816, the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsovo was consecrated again. Then Vorontsovo changed its owner. In 1837, it was General S. Mukhanov, who “insulated” the temple and built a bell tower and chapel in honor of his saint, Sergius of Radonezh. Memorial Cross to the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident. The Bolshevik government did not stand on ceremony with “remnants of the past” for a long time and built it on the territory of the Vorontsov estate pig-breeding farm of the OGPU (a direct illustration of the saying “with a pig’s snout - yes to a Kalash row”). The new owners “broke things in a new way.”

In 1938, the temple was closed, beheaded, the bell tower was dismantled, and the building was used for national economic needs. Believers received back the dear ruins of the Trinity Church in 1990 and immediately began to revive it. Restoration work was carried out until 1995, and the church is being decorated to this day.

It also has its own especially revered shrine - the icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness”. Next to the temple there is a Memorial Cross with a memorial plaque: “Eternal memory to the citizens of the South-Western District of Moscow who died during the liquidation of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.” Naturally, the dead are remembered during funeral services.

Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in the village of Vorontsovo

Starokaluzhskoe Highway, 2 (deep in the park)

"Owners of the village: Repnins - 1767-1837; Mukhanovs - 1837-1867; Sushkins - 1867-1892; last owner Grunbaum; in 1928 - state farm."

“The church was built in 1807 in an octagonal garden pavilion. The bell tower and chapel are from 1838. The interior decoration is in a classical style, modern to the church” (hence, in 1928 it was not yet closed. - P.P.).

"Chapel in the name of St. Sergius."

"In the second half of the 18th century, the Vorontsovo estate belonged to the Repnins, who built a number of buildings here. A church was built in one of the garden pavilions in 1807. In the 1770-1780s, two small guardhouses were built at the entrance to the estate, Two pseudo-Gothic towers were built close to it as a kind of ceremonial pylons of the gate leading to the front courtyard of the estate. Similar buildings appeared in the estates of the Moscow region in connection with the solemn celebration of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace with Turkey in 1773.”

"The first church was consecrated in the manor house in the name of the Origin of the Trees of the Holy Cross in the 18th century. The new one in the garden tower - in 1807. The bell tower and the right side chapel were added in the 1830s by the new owner S.I. Mukhanov. After the revolution, the temple was occupied a state farm that supplied pork to the NKVD. The last service was in October 1938. But the belfry was dismantled already in the 1920s to make bricks for the barnyard. The church housed a mechanical workshop, then a toy production factory.”

The main house of the estate burned down after 1917.

In 1968, the temple building was occupied by a children's toy factory. The bell tower was destroyed, pipes and a motor were attached to the walls.

By 1976, the Vorontsovo state farm was abolished, the toy factory was moved out of the former church, which had turned into dilapidated ruins. When leaving, the factory broke the roof of the temple and refectory, broke down the doors and windows, completely emptying the interior. The condition of the temple has become one of the saddest in Moscow, although it is listed under state protection under No. 399.

Since 1978, the eviction of the cemetery surrounding the temple began. At the altar there was still a cross with a touching inscription: “Archpriest Mikhail Vasilyevich and Maria Egorovna Tretyakov. Their service at this temple was 55 years: 1855 - 1909.” The fate of the cross in connection with the demolition of the cemetery was predetermined. By 1990 it was no longer there.

Together with a dilapidated temple under the same number under state protection as part of the “Vorontsovo estate of the 18th-19th centuries.” listed: "two entrance towers with guardhouses attached to them, 1770s; northern wing, building 5; southern wing, building 6; northern service building, building 3; southern service building, building 7; two pillars at at the entrance to the highway; a park of 48.7 hectares with a system of ponds; an 18th-century chamber."

The temple was returned to the believers again in 1990. “The Trinity Church in Vorontsov Park was especially “lucky”. After the “battle” it was finally given to the community, it has neither a vault, nor windows, nor doors.”

"On May 6, 1990, the temple was returned to believers; services resumed on May 23, 1990, under the leadership of Father Sergius Polyakov."

“The history of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Vorontsovo is a fragment of the general history of the excommunication of the people from the church. Such a long and difficult road back to faith.

This scene is like a snapshot from the history of turbulent hard times, the lights of church candles curl in the draft, walking through the broken walls and gaping windows. The decapitated temple looks like ruins after a fair amount of bombing. But prayer brightens the faces of the parishioners. And faith grows stronger - this destroyed temple will be reborn, the moral principles of Orthodoxy will return to Russian hearts.

Outwardly, it still bears the stamp of the times of unbelief. That time when the church in Vorontsov Park, abandoned for decades, stood and fell apart, like hundreds of other churches throughout Moscow. The final destructive touch to this picture of desolation was added by the order of the city authorities to restore the gloss for the 1980 Olympics, when they razed the graves in the surrounding church cemetery.

Revival. It has begun. A group of Muscovites united, created a community, and helped ensure that the ruins, called an architectural monument, returned to their rightful owner - the Moscow Patriarchate. The rector, Father Sergius, is already conducting services here. Preparations for the revival of the temple at the very start of a large construction program that will require half a million expenses.

What did the temple look like? What details are interesting about his fate and original appearance? Much unknown about the history of the church is hidden in the past. The parishioners are trying to restore it bit by bit. We found a photograph from the beginning of the century, which provided at least a guideline for restoration work. And almost everything needs to be restored - the altar, iconostasis, paintings, belfry, dome, details of lost architectural decor. After all, it was elegant and solemn - a church in the Vorontsov estate, which later passed to the Repnin family. Is it possible for even a fairly large parish - now the number of parishioners has reached 300 and continues to grow - to cope with such a burden of expenses?

The parish's appeal to regional organizations has so far brought little - only about 40 thousand rubles have been given to the "outstretched hand". Or maybe there is a company in the city that can take under its wing the revival of the Church of the Holy Trinity? This is for the soul, in the name of faith. Many people have already responded to the call for help; they have come here more than once from all over Moscow for voluntary clean-up days.

As the chairman of the parish council, G. G. Koshelev, told us, believers here dream of making their own educational center that will introduce them to the faith. This means that a Sunday school has to be opened. The cherished plan of Koshelev, who is an artist by profession, is to equip an icon-painting workshop here. Everyone who is trying to implement these plans is, in the old way, laymen. People with very different professions and hobbies. And they were united by the belief that a spiritual revival was beginning. No, the people were not excommunicated from the church."

“In December 1990, at the Palace of Culture of the State Bearing Plant No. 1, a charity evening from the series “Spiritual Heritage of Russia” was held, the program included sacred music. Father Sergius, rector of the Trinity Church in Vorontsov, spoke about canonization in the history of the church, in favor of which the collected funds will go."

All churches of the South-Western Vicariate collected help for the boarding school. The churches of St. Andrew's deanery made a significant contribution to the common cause. The central church of St. Andrew's deanery - the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Starye Cheryomushki, in addition to gifts and money, prepared a performance and an entire animation program for children. Help was provided by the Charitable Foundation of the Church “Good Deed in Starye Cheryomushki”

All churches of St. Andrew's deanery thank all benefactors participating in collecting help for the boarding school. From the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Starye Cheryomushki, we managed to donate, in addition to the sum of money, new office furniture - two tables, two bedside tables, two chairs, a box of New Year's Christmas tree decorations, 11 kg of sweets, etc. The Moscow Social Puppet Theater "Sunflower" performed at the boarding school for children ( Iliotropion). The theater is part of the social service of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Starye Cheryomushki. All theater artists are volunteers. The puppet theater presented a moral and instructive performance for the boarding school students, and also performed animated games with them. The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsovsky Park donated to the children, in addition to a sum of money, a new laptop, a winter sled, a pressure cooker, toys, etc. At the end of the holiday, Priest Alexander Kovtun and social workers of the churches presented memorable gifts to the children, administration and teachers, and icons were donated to the prayer room at the boarding school from the parishioners of the Church of the Nativity in Chernev.

CHAPTERI. The Repnin family as the organizers of the temple.

We find the first mention of Vorontsov in documents from the beginning of the 17th century, when the wasteland that was the village of Vorontsov, Moscow district of Chermnev Stan, belonged to the boyar Prince Boris Alexandrovich Repnin. The Repnin princes descended from the holy Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and his descendants, the Obolensky princes. The ancestor of the Repnins themselves was Prince Ivan Repnya Obolensky. The father of the owner Vorontsov, Prince Alexander Andreevich Repnin, “in the list from the boyar list in 7119 (1611), who was found in the rank after the ruin of Moscow from Lithuania, was listed as a nobleman.” His son, Prince B. A. Repnin, was mentioned in the stolniks in 1616, granted “for the Moscow siege, for siege service.” In 1627 - 1636 he had a local salary of 600 quarters. In 1640, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich granted him the title of boyar. During his life, Prince Boris Aleksandrovich served the Fatherland in various responsible positions, as a judge in various ranks and orders, and as a governor in the cities of Astrakhan, Sevsk and Belgorod. In 1653, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich sent him to diplomatic service - as the Great Ambassador to Poland and Lithuania to King John - Casimir. During the Smolensk campaign, he was appointed regimental commander in Smolensk. We read about Vorontsov in the refusal book of the Local Order of 1647, when clerk Orlov “traveled to the Moscow and Borovsky districts in various camps to the estates and estates of the boyar Prince Boris Alexandrovich Repnin at the request of the son of his boyar Prince Ivan Borisovich Repnin and those estates and ranks in Moscow and in Borovsky district in different camps, Prince Boris Alexandrovich Repnin refused to his son, the boyar, and Ivan Borisovich in the Moscow district in Chermnev, a camp of repairs on the pond, which was known as the wasteland of Batashevo, the wasteland that there was the village of Vorontsov.”

Thus, Vorontsovo as a village existed back in the 16th century and was devastated during the Polish-Lithuanian hard times, after which it was considered a wasteland. Then, at the beginning of the 17th century, it was given from the Local Prikaz to Prince B.A. Repnin on the estate for the “Moscow siege”, and later it was assigned to the estate.

Prince Ivan Borisovich Repnin, following family tradition, served as a judge in various orders and, like his father, was sent as a governor to the cities bordering Lithuania and Poland. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich granted him many awards, including land holdings. In 1679, under Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, he took part in a campaign against the Turkish Sultan and the Crimean Khan. In the last years of his life, he served as a judge in the order of the Kazan Palace. Under him, Vorontsovo became a village, that is, Prince Ivan Borisovich set up a boyar courtyard with a courtyard mansion building here. According to the entries in the refusal book of the Local Order of 1687, we learn that his children, princes Nikita Ivanovich and Andrei Ivanovich Repnin, inherited from their father “in the Moscow district in Chermnev I will become a small village, that there was a wasteland of Vorontsov and a wasteland of Shatilov with repairs, and in them there are one hundred and seven quarters of arable land with osmina." Thus, we can say that the estate in Vorontsovo existed since the second half of the 17th century.

After the death of Prince A.I. Repnin, who died childless, the Moscow Region came into the possession of Prince N.I. Repnin, a famous associate of Peter the Great, an active participant in his reforms, a commander, and a participant in the famous battles of Lesnoy and Poltava. The President of the Military Collegium, Prince Nikita Ivanovich, was granted the rank of field marshal by Empress Catherine I in 1724.

In the census book of the estates of the Moscow district of the first quarter of the 18th century in the Chermnev camp it was mentioned “behind the general, behind Prince Nikita Ivanovich Repnin, the village of Vorontsovo, the yard of the Votsinniks, and in it there are business people Ivan Fedotov, 40 years old, he has a son Timofey, 17 years old, Karp Emelyanov, 50 years old , Evdokim Fedorov is 39 years old, baker Denis Mikhailov is 48 years old, he has children Yakov 15 years old, Zakhar 10, groom Pavel Grigoriev is 40 years old, he has children Vasily 18, Pavel 9 years old, and according to the fairy tale of the businessman Ivan Fedorov from that votchinnik yard business people Lavrenty Kuzmin, Zakhar and Grigory Ivanov’s children died after the census of 1703, and Ivan Sergeev and Efim Denisov were taken as soldiers in 1710.”

From the documents of the Local Order it is known that in February 1714, Prince Nikita Ivanovich Repnin “divided his immovable estates in different cities to his children Prince Ivana, Prince Sergei, Prince Vasily, Prince Yuryu, and according to that division the said village of Vorontsovo and the wasteland of Shatilovo went to his son Prince Ivan Repnin." According to the books of the Moscow district, “in that Prince Ivan patrimony, Prince Nikitin’s son Repnin, which is written for him in the painting behind the hand of the father of the general and gentleman Prince Anikita Ivanovich in Chermnev, I will camp in the village that was the wasteland of Vorontsov,” and in the wasteland of Shatilovo and in the repair of Ivankov there is written arable land with approximate land 107 chetya with osmina, and in two because.” The main estates allocated to Prince I.N. Repnin were located in the Rostov, Simbirsk and Shatsky districts. Vorontsov's estate was called the village of Shatilovo, Vorontsovo also.

After the death of Prince I.N. His Repnina, located near Moscow in the Setun camp, went to his sons Sergei Ivanovich and Pyotr Ivanovich Repnin. In 1744, the Life Guards of the Kira-Sir regiment was captained by Prince SI. Repnin also “ceded his real estate near the village of Shatilov, Vorontsov, to his brother of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, Captain Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Repnin, with various lands belonging to that village, all without a trace.” In a later certificate from the Local Order to the Berg - Collegium on the real estate of Lieutenant General Prince P.I. Vorontsov (January 1763) it was mentioned: “in the village of Shatilov, Vorontsovo, 22 souls are written for men in per capita salary, and households not scheduled."

Under Prince P. I. Repnin and his wife Marfa Ivanovna, nee Countess Golovkina, an estate and park ensemble was created in Vorontsovo and Shatilov. In the 1760s and 1770s, a wooden manor house with a formal garden is mentioned here. Lieutenant General, chief echelon master, diplomat, brilliantly educated man - Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Repnin is setting up a cozy estate near Moscow in Vorontsovo, following the example of other famous estates of the 18th century, which received another name - Bespechnoe.

II. Construction of a house temple

The small peasant population and the lack of a legal proportion of church land prevented the establishment of an independent parish church in Vorontsov-Bespechny. The Repnins' property traditionally consisted of the parish of the church in the name of St. Michael the Archangel, an ancient fiefdom of the Novodevichy Convent in the village of Tropareva.

Prince P.I. Repnin and his family spent the last years of his life in Vorontsovo, where he conceived the idea of ​​establishing a special house church. In March 1767, in his petition to Metropolitan Timofey (Shcherbatsky) of Moscow and Kaluga, Pyotr Ivanovich wrote: “I live with my wife in my estate near Moscow in the village of Vorontsov, and due to the lack of a Church of God in that village and due to poor health, we are always deprived Divine liturgy and other church singing, for the sake of which I accepted the intention to build a church in the village shown above, I again ask, due to the announced circumstances, that the construction of the church indicated at my house and the provision of a movable antimension be determined by Your Eminence by decree.” The Metropolitan wrote in his resolution: “It is permissible to allow the church to be built in the house of His Lordship in a comfortable place, subject to proper examination, without building a chapter on it, which is moving toward the correction of the Divine Liturgy.” The basis for the establishment of house churches was given by Peter the Great with his decree of October 5, 1723, according to which the house church was allowed “to noble persons who were completely infirm and were not allowed to go to church, only with those antimensions there was no church clergy of their own , but the priests would serve in those parishes.” Thus, the house church in Vorontsovo was supposed to be attributed to the Archangel parish church in Troparevo. A member of the Moscow Spiritual Consistory came to inspect the site of the house church in Vorontsovo Spassky (in Chigasy) Archpriest Lev, who approved the site and brought the plan of the temple to the Consistory. Already on March 29, 1767, the Zagorod Spiritual Board, whose church region included Vorontsovo and Troparevo, reported to the Consistory: “... in which the village at the house of His Excellency, an ancient church in the name of the All-Merciful Savior with the same chambers of His Excellency in nearby, it was built according to testimony in a convenient place in the likeness of other holy churches, the altar is to the east and the holy altar in it was built according to the specified measure, the iconostasis and holy images were painted with skillful writing, and not with foreign kunsts, also with vessels I am satisfied with the church vestments and books and am ready for consecration, since this church was built without a head and without a cross.” The house church in the village of Vorontsovo was consecrated in the name of the Honest Trees of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. It existed for just over three years and was abolished in 1770 after the death of Princess Marfa Ivanovna Repnina. The owner of the estate turned to the Archbishop of Moscow and Kaluga Ambrose (Zertis-Kamensky) with a request to transfer the property of the abolished house church to the parish Archangel Church in the village of Tropareva, where a special chapel was subsequently built in the name of the Honest Trees of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. The archives have preserved a unique drawing of the house Spassky Church.

In 1778, after the death of Lieutenant General Prince P.I. Repnin, who died childless, the village of Vorontsovo came into the possession of his cousin, Prince Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin, Field Marshal General, an outstanding military figure, commander and diplomat of Catherine's era. It is to this time that Vorontsov’s new look dates back to: the main manor house, outbuildings, and outbuildings were being built, and on the side of the Kaluga road, a ceremonial entrance gate with guardhouses in the pseudo-Gothic style was built. The manor park was especially good with its regular and English parts, with promising alleys and numerous paths, with a developed water system of cascading ponds. After the end of the second Turkish War in 1791, Prince N.V. Repnin permanently lived in Vorontsov with his wife NatalyaAlexandrovna, nee Kurakina, with daughters Alexandra and Daria. In 1787, he turned to the Moscow noble guardianship with a request, as a landowner of the Moscow district of the village of Vorontsov with villages, to include his children in the Genealogical Book of the Moscow Province. In his form list, he gives the following information about himself and his family: “he is 53 years old, married to Princess Natalya Alexandrovna Kurakina, has no male children, and has two daughters, of whom the first Princess Alexandra is married to General - lieutenant and cavalier Prince Grigory Semenovich Volkonsky, and the second princess Daria - as a maiden, the hereditary real estate estate of the Moscow province and surrounding area consists of the village of Vorontsov with villages, in which there are 52 male souls, 46 female souls, in the district I don’t live, from the army, general-in-chief, lieutenant general, governor general of Smolensk and Pskov, lieutenant colonel of the Izmailovsky Life Guards Regiment, am in military service.” Prince N.V. Repnin attached to his note a family tree of the Repnin family, compiled for the Moscow Noble Assembly.

In 1798, Princess N.A. Repnina died, and three years later, in May 1801, Prince N.V. died in his Vorontsovo estate. Repnin. Podmoskovnaya came into the possession of the sisters - Princess A.N. Volkonskaya and Baroness D.N. Kahlenberg. According to the family agreement of the heirs of Princess A.N. Volkonskaya, the estate in Vorontsovo passes into the possession of Princess Sofia Grigorievna Volkonskaya, and from her to her brother Nikolai Grigorievich Volkonsky, who took it by the Highest permission
the surname of his grandfather Field Marshal Repnin and called Repnin-Volkonsky.

The history of the construction of the manor church in Vorontsovo is connected with his family.

III. Construction of a manor church.

The idea for the construction of the parish church belongs to the wife of Prince N. G. Repnin-Volkonsky, Princess Varvara Alekseevna, née Countess Razumovskaya, who in 1806 asked the blessing of Metropolitan of Moscow and Kaluga Platon (Levshin) for the construction of a new stone church in the name of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity. This turned out to be not an easy matter, since obstacles remained - the sparse population of the future parish, the proximity of the church in Troparevo, the lack of a legal proportion of church land. Metropolitan Platon advised the princess to submit petitions to the Holy Governing Synod. The Minister of the Interior, CountB.P. Kochubey, who conveyed the request of Princess V. A. RepNina-Volkonskaya on the Highestname of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich. In the accompanying letter we find details of this case: “In the estate of her late father-in-law, Field Marshal PrinceMetropolitan of Moscow and Kaluga Repnin, in a village near MoscowCalled Vorontsov, who died and his daughter was buried in the same place with him, proposes to build a stone church in that village mentioned with a small establishment to help the poor. She could freely begin to build this church if the number of peasants in this village of her husband corresponded to the number assigned by law for the church or parish, but as livingthere are very few peasants there, this very circumstance was the only reason that Princess Repnina asked me to bring her intention to the attention of the Sovereign Emperor and to ask for the highest permission to build a church in Vorontsov so that the priest and clergy would be at it to those who have it, she will assign a decent allowance from herself.” Count V.P. Kochubey reported the results to the Synodal Chief Prosecutor A.N. Golitsyn: “I had the good fortune to report this to the Sovereign Emperor. His Majesty, having accepted with favor this proposal, praised by Princess Repnina, deigned to express his Highest consent to the establishment of a church in the village of Vorontsov on the above-mentioned foundation.” Thus, the Most High allowed the construction of a new stone church on the estate of the princes Repnin-Volkonsky, and the Holy Synod on June 13, 1806 passed the decree to Moscow to the Spiritual Consistory. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the archives of the Moscow Consistory were destroyed by a fire, in which many documents were irretrievably lost, including the archival file on the construction of the Trinity Church. That is why the copy of the “note in which it is explained what kind of institution Princess Repnina wishes to have at the proposed church”, preserved in the Synodal Fund of the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg, is so precious. A photocopy of this document is contained in the temple archives; the author provides it in full:

“1st. In the village of Vorontsovo, a stone church will be built in the name of the Holy Trinity, with the following institutions attached to the church:

2nd. In memory of the late General Field Marshal Prince Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin, a refuge for poor old people, of whom there will be six at the consecration of the church, from now on the number will be doubled.

3rd. In memory of my late daughter, Princess Marya Nikolaevna Repnina, a school for poor girls, the number of which will be equal to the number of old men.

4th. Both of these institutions are under the main supervision of the priest of that church.

5th. In addition, the school for poor girls will have a special matron.

6th. This school teaches:

1. The law of God.
2. Russian language.
3. German language.
4. Arithmetic.
5. Beginnings of drawing.
6. Various handicrafts.

7th. During those hours when the priest is not busy with school, he instructs the children of the peasants of the village of Vorontsov, who also belong to the serfs. This training consists of:

1. In the Law of God.
2. Russian language.
3. Arithmetic.

8th. The priest will not forbid the children of neighboring villages to use this instruction.

9th. Accepted into the school...

10th. The headmistress should accustom the pupils to housekeeping and in recent years force them to keep account books for the expenses of the institution.

11- e . Upon marriage, pupils receive three hundred rubles as a dowry in addition to dresses, underwear and other things, and depending on their merit, even more.

12- e . Both of these institutions accept free people and students are given in marriage to free people.”

Having received the synodal decree, Moscow Metropolitan Platon was in no hurry to give final permission, “until the said Princess Repnina presents to him the position of the mentioned Princess Repnina, which exactly she assigns from herself to the priest with the clergy who is supposed to be at the proposed church, a decent salary and what it provides."

By December 1806, Princess V.A. Repnina-Volkonskaya promised to contribute 12,000 rubles to the Treasury of the Moscow Orphanage, most of which for the maintenance of the church and clergy of the Trinity Church. A significant amount was also intended for the church of Michael the Archangel in Troparevo “for the priest and the clergy, so that by building a new church and a special clergy in Vorontsovo they would remain comfortable.” Expecting a receipt from the temple builder for payment of the promised fee, Metropolitan Platon ordered the Consistory “that on this basis Princess Repnina can be allowed to build a church.” However, until September 1807, no receipt for the promised money was presented. The possibility of a conflict with the Moscow diocesan authorities arose. The fact that the implementation of existing laws and regulations by Metropolitan Plato was carried out strictly and without regard to persons was shown by the well-known fact when Vladyka forbade the installation of a priest and the beginning of worship in the newly built chapel church in the name of St. Paul of Thebes in an estate near Moscow Count P. G. Demidov “Leonovo”. Ignoring the owner's threats to deny the clergy the required maintenance, the Metropolitan ordered the closure of the parish in Leonovo, which had been empty for almost 100 years. On September 6, 1807, Major General Prince N.G. Repnin and his wife declared to the Safe Treasury of the Moscow Board of Trustees, “that they contribute 15,000 rubles in banknotes to this treasury for perpetual maintenance and we ask you to give three proper tickets from 5%: one for 10,000 rubles to receive interest from them to the priest with the clergy of the newly built Church of the Holy Trinity, consisting of our village of Vorontsov near Moscow". Interest on the amount of 3,000 rubles was supposed to be given to the clergy of the Troparevsky Church “in satisfaction for the separation of the parishioners of the village of Vorontsov from this church.” For the residence of the Trinity clergy, two stone one-story houses were built at the expense of the landowners.

In 1807, Metropolitan Platon signed a charter for the construction of the Trinity Church in the Repnins near Moscow. At the same time, a new church was founded, using, it is believed, a stone pavilion in the estate park to build the temple. Construction was completed very quickly, and already at the end of 1807, a priest, John Markov, was assigned to the Trinity Church.

The Patriotic War of 1812 had a hard impact on Vorontsov. So there, in 1812, a secret “superweapon” was manufactured that threatened to turn the tide of hostilities with France - a balloon loaded with shells that were supposed to be dropped on the heads of Napoleonic soldiers. The whole affair was led by a certain Leppich, who came to Moscow under the name of Doctor Schmitt from Stuttgart on the recommendation of the Russian envoy, who wrote that the new invention was suitable “for blowing up all fortresses, for stopping or exterminating the greatest armies.” Following the orders of Alexander I, he was placed in Vorontsovo, given security, provided with the necessary materials and began to eagerly await the promised results. They, however, did not follow, and full of disappointment, it was reported to St. Petersburg: “Leppich is a crazy charlatan.” This curious story was reflected in the novel “War and Peace”: Tolstoy sent Pierre Bezukhov to the village of Vorontsovo “to look at the large balloon that Leppich was building for the death of the enemy, and the test balloon that was to be launched tomorrow. This ball was not ready yet, but as Pierre found out, it was built at the request of the sovereign...” As the French approached, some of the equipment was taken to Nizhny Novgorod, and some had to be burned. The French then looked into them with curiosity, trying to understand what the Russians were up to. Leppich tried to build something for some time, until finally, in 1814, an order was issued to send him “to where he came from.”

Unfortunately, the Repnin estate itself paid for the unsuccessful project: French troops retreating along the Kaluga road burned the main house, 8 parish peasant households, and desecrated the Trinity Church. From information about the condition of the churches of the Moscow diocese, sent to the Holy Synod at the beginning of 1813, it is said about the Trinity Church in Vorontsov: “intact, the throne and altar are intact, clothes have been removed, the antimension is intact, the iconostasis and holy icons are not damaged, church utensils and The best sacristy was plundered." The dean, who inspected the church in 1812, reports in more detail about the losses in the church: “the frame was removed from two gospels and the boards were broken; there are no crosses, tabernacles, vessels, saucers; the vestments, shrouds, robes and vestments belonging to this church were taken away; The crowns and frames were removed from various images; the shroud is intact, but its decoration has been torn off and taken away. The entire church, both inside and outside and with the bell tower, is intact and undamaged. The two clergy houses are intact, only the inside is disfigured.” Of the 10 parish courtyards in Vorontsovo, only three remained intact. Residents of the destroyed houses found shelter in the estate, in the landlords' outbuildings. It is known about the owners that “the landowner is in the army, and his wife lives in St. Petersburg.” Prince N.G. Repnin’s attorney, Ilya Larionovich Burtsev, reported: “Last 1812, during the invasion of enemy troops, at my master’s dacha, located 6 versts from Moscow along the Kaluga road, in the village of Vorontsovo, a newly built church and all the church things were in it. and the sacristy were plundered completely, and upon leaving Moscow along that Kaluga road, the French troops near that village, the houses and all the household establishments with them, were burned to the ground.” An irreparable loss was the destruction in a fire of the unique family archive of the Repnins, including authentic correspondence about the construction of the Trinity Church and, probably, its design drawings.

IV. Restoration of religious services after the French invasion.

In January 1813, Prince A. N. Golitsyn petitioned the administrator of the Moscow diocese, Archbishop of Dmitrov Augustin (Vinogradsky), at the request of Princess V. A. Repnina, to consecrate the Trinity Church in Vorontsov with the restoration of the priestly place in it. Due to the destruction of the parish church, priest John Markov was transferred to a new location as rector of the church in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye on Istra Zvenigorod district. However, the renewal of the Trinity Church did not follow soon. Prince N.G. Repnin returned to this issue in 1816, when in his petition to Archbishop Augustine of Dmitrov he asked for permission to “use the interest accumulated in the Preservation Treasury for the restoration of the Church of the Life-giving Trinity.” According to the clergy report of 1816 about the churches and clergy of the Moscow region in the village of Vorontsovo, “the church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity is shown in a stone building, in solid form, not yet consecrated, there is no clergy with it, this village was burned, there are 11 parish courtyards, the clergy’s houses are stone with all accessories." From March to October 1816, the Trinity Church was restored. Back in March, Prince N. G. Repnin, in a letter to the archbishop, reported that he hoped “by the grace of God to bring the church into proper order as soon as possible,” and in October he, as a lieutenant general and the Little Russian military governor, asked to consecrate the Trinity Church of Moscow "Nikolaevsky, which is in Khlynov to Archpriest John." Thus, the church was consecrated on October 17, 1816 by the dean priest of the Church of St. Nicholas in Khlynov, Archpriest John Ioannov.The center of the composition was the octagonal volume of the church, covered with a domed vault, above which rose a lantern with a drum and a dome. The temple was surrounded on three sides by a porch with an exedra in the west.

The unusual shape of the temple was explained by the fact that the Repnins rebuilt a garden pavilion as a church. This is probably just an assumption by the first descriptors of the monument - members of the OIRU, which was then turned into a historical fact. Perhaps we should only talk about the influence of the architecture of park pavilions with pseudo-Gothic elements of the late 18th century. on the composition of the temple and its decor (note the pointed lintels of the church windows and the design of the porch frames).

For quite a long time from the day of its consecration, the Trinity Church in Vorontsovo did not have an independent clergy. This, in particular, was explained by the transfer of the estate to new owners and controversial property claims that prevented the provision of sufficient maintenance to the clergy, despite the legal interest on the capital deposited in the bank for the existence of the temple and clergy by Prince N.G. Repnin. In 1823, the Archbishop of Moscow and Kolomna Philaret (Drozdov) was approached by Privy Councilor Pyotr Petrovich Naryshkin, who asked for the maintenance of the clergy of the church, owned by his relatives Repnin in the village of Vorontsovo, to give the accumulated interest, “which is not have been received since 1816." According to the 1823 report, the Trinity Church in Vorontsovo is shown to be stone, single-altar, and strong. The parish at the temple consisted of 12 households with a population of 105 people.

In March 1825, the owner of Vorontsov, Major General Prince Nikita Grigoryevich Volkonsky, approached Metropolitan Philaret with a petition asking him to appoint a priest for the Trinity Church (a copy of the Metropolitan’s response is attached in Figure 6). By the choice of the Bishop, on November 6, 1825, a graduate of the Bethany Seminary, the son of a priest from the Moscow diocese, Alexei Ivanovich Sinai, was assigned to the temple. At the same time, sexton Alexey Alekseevich Zakatov and sexton Joakim Evstigneev were appointed clerks. The Trinity parish was part of the deanery of the Moscow district of the St. Sergius Church in Konkovo. The rector of the renewed Trinity Church, Fr. Alexy Si-naisky wasactive, educated priest. During the cholera that raged in Moscow in 1830, he attracted the attention of Metropolitan Philaret by serving in the infirmaries of the Ryazhsky and Tula regiments, when, due to the death of the regimental priest, Fr. Alexy corrected the needs of sick soldiers who participated in the cordon sanitaire around Moscow. For diligent performance of his duties, he was awarded a loincloth andappointed confessor of the deanery. In 1842 Fr. Alexy was appointed dean of his districtWith the consent of the Volkonsky princes, in 1836 the specified proportion of estate, arable and hay land (36 acres) was allocated to the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsovo, and in 1837 land for the parish cemetery was determined. In 1837, an immovable estate near the village of Vorontsovo, Moscow district, was bought by peasants from the Volkonskys by a wealthy landowner and temple builder, General Sergei Ilyich Mukhanov (1762 - 1842), with whose funds in 1838 a warm (winter) church was organized in the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity. a chapel in the name of his patron saint, St. Sergius of Radonezh, and the bell tower is being rebuilt.

In the clergy register of the churches of the Moscow district of the Vorontsov deanery, the following is said about the Church of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity: “The building is stone with a bell tower, covered with iron, the floor is wooden, the plan for this church was made in 1838, there are two altars in real cold in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity, in a warm chapel in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh, mediocre utensils.” Unfortunately, the drawings of the Trinity Church have not reached us, and we do not know the name of the architect - the author of the project for rebuilding the refectory church and erecting a small bell tower with an open tier of bells. Perhaps it was the architect of the Mukhanovs, who worked at the same time on their Bogorodskoye estate, the village of Nikolskoye, Zdekhov in the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, as well as in another Moscow region near the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in the village of Vozdvizhenskoye in the Church of the Exaltation The Cross of the Lord, - Dmitry Fomich Borisov, author of designs for many church buildings in Moscow and the Moscow province, Moscow provincial architect. . It is known that the staff master of the SI. Mukhanov was a believer and a pious man who had “an aesthetic taste in architecture and painting” and was friends with the Moscow saint, Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov). The architect introduced features characteristic of the architecture of late classicism into the new decorative decoration of the refectory, bell tower, and Trinity Church in Vorontsov.

The relationship between the Trinity clergy and the new landowner was far from ideal. The land issue became a stumbling block. SI. Mukhanov challenged the land survey carried out in favor of the church by the Volkonsky princes, and spoke about this with Metropolitan Philaret. According to the testimony of Maria Sergeevna Mukhanova, made in 1853, “when Father explained this to you, Your Eminence was pleased to tell him not to give the land to the clergy and so that, if they insistently demand, let them know that in that In some cases, capital may move away from the church and enter another department. Your gracious words have so far protected us from all demands.”

Back in 1838, the clergyman of the Trinity Church in Vorontsovo appealed to the Consistory with a request for protection “from the unauthorized action of the landowner of that village, General Mukhanov, who ordered his peasants to use the church land.” The Moscow diocesan authorities advised the clergymen to “appeal to the patronage of the owner and ask him for a decent plot of estate land.” The Mukhanovs gave in favor church half a tithe of land for a garden.

In 1849, Dean Fr. Alexy Sinaisky complained to the Consistory about M. S. Mukhanova and her sisters that she owned church land, “without making anything for it,” the contents of which were “very meager.” The parish of the Trinity Church consisted of 13 peasant households with a population of 60 males and 57 females. In the estate of the Mukhanovs, “who do not live here,” lived serfs, freedmen of Mr. Gedeonov, Moscow townspeople and military officials. In response to the claims of Fr. Alexia M. S. Mukhanova answered that “clergy live in houses that belong to us, which we maintain and heat, and therefore do not have the right to estate land, but for the rest they have vegetable gardens and orchards on our land, which they use without hindrance." The dean disputed the words of the landowner and in the clergy register of 1851 he wrote that the stone houses of the clergy “are becoming dilapidated so that in winter it is impossible to live in them due to the cold, the wooden accessories to them are also dilapidated.” In a note on the position of the clergyman of the Trinity Church in the village of Vorontsovo, compiled in the Consistory in 1854, it was noted: “In excess of the required capital, 15,800 rubles in banknotes, from which the clergyman receives interest in his favor of 790 rubles. In addition, they use: premises in master's houses with heating; have their own gardens and vegetable gardens; receive 300 pounds of hay; 85 rubles in banknotes for the annual commemoration.” In response to Fr. Alexy, at the request of Metropolitan Philaret, described point by point the true position of the Trinity clergy, which we present in full:

"1. Although he has premises as a priest in a landowner's house, in winter, due to the dilapidation of the chambers, which are now left without any care, he suffers extreme poverty with his large family and receives heating for the chambers untimely and, moreover, the most meager, consisting of damp brushwood.

1. Neither the priest nor the clergy have a vegetable garden due to the inconvenience of the land, and the garden, although the priest has one, receives very little benefit from it because of the huge trees growing nearby that provide shade in it. And the garden occupies a quarter of a tithe of land.
2. A priest with a clergy of very poor quality receives 300 poods of hay, and at the wrong time.
3. The priest and the clergy receive 85 rubles in banknotes for the annual commemoration and service on the heel of each week of the funeral liturgy and at the end of that requiem service in the same untimely manner.

5. Landowner Mukhanova gives 100 rubles in banknotes to the priest’s daughter, as her goddaughter, for clothes, although not without difficulty, and even recently she has not shown such favor.

6. The priest does not know whether the priests receive any assistance. But the arable land in the amount of 33 dessiatines has a clayey property, convenient for making bricks, and due to its proximity to the Capital, since it is 5 versts from the Kaluga outpost, it can be leased with significant benefit for the clergy.”

In August 1855, priest Mikhail Vasilyevich Tretyakov was appointed rector of the Trinity Church in Vorontsov. The controversial case with the landowner ended in reconciliation in 1856, after she contributed 2,000 silver rubles to the Council of Trustees with the issuance of interest in favor of the clergy for the ownership of church land, and from that time it was decided to consider “the clergy of the Trinity Church in the village of Vorontsov , consisting of an external position." It is possible that the retirement of Fr. Alexy Sinaisky, who fought against the tyranny of the Mukhanovs for more than 20 years, was one of the conditions of the love agreement between the church and the owners of the estate. Vorontsovo ceased to be the center of the deanery, which moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the village of Yasenevo.

The second half of the 19th century did not leave any interesting documents on the history of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsovo. The owners of the estate change - instead of the noble and wealthy nobility, the estate passes into the possession of industrialists and wealthy businessmen. From 1867 to the 1880s, the estate was owned by the Moscow merchant of the 1st guild and manufacturer Grigory Mikhailovich Sushkin, who was chosen as the church warden of the Holy Trinity Church. Associated with his name is the interesting fact that an ancient banner of the early 17th century, kept in the sacristy of the parish church, was transferred to the Armory.

In April 1883, rector Fr. Mikhail Tretyakov and church elder M. G. Sushkin turned to the Armory Chamber with the consent to give the image of the Savior on canvas (banner), dating back to the time of Prince Pozharsky, for storage, with the condition: “since our church is small in number parishioners are poor, then it would be highly desirable to receive a reward for the church from the Moscow Armory Chamber in return for the said banner.” The Armory Chamber, in turn, in a letter to the Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Ioannikiy (Rudnev) asked for permission: “In the village of Vorontsovo, 3 versts from Moscow, there is a banner similar to the banner of Prince Pozharsky, it is unknown where, when and how it arrived , in the church inventory it is written “The image of the Savior, written on matter.” Judging by the place occupied by this image (it hangs on the wall, above the door), and by the lack of historical data, the arrival of this image is hardly of interest to the temple for its storage, meanwhile, in the Armory Chamber they are stored as historical treasures the meaning of many ancient Russian banners with icons depicted on them, why, to replenish this rare collection, we dare to turn to Your Eminence to recognize the possibility of transferring the said banner for storage to the Armory Chamber, where it will have a great significance for Russian history." In May 1883, the banner from the Vorontsov Church delivered to the Armory Chamber, and in February 1884, the Moscow Palace Office gave the church elder of the Trinity Church, M. G. Sushkin, the Highest 150 rubles “for donating an ancient banner to the Armory Chamber.” Unfortunately, the transfer documents did not preserve a detailed description or image of this unique shrine, most likely donated to the temple by the Repnin princes, whose ancestors were distinguished by military feats in the history of Russia, participating in many battles of the Russian army in the XVII - XIX centuries. No detailed description of the church and sacristy property of the Trinity Church in Vorontsovo has survived to this day, with the exception of a brief inventory of the 1920s.

At the end of the 19th century, the estate changed several owners: from the Sushkins it passed to the trading company Karl Thiel and Co., then to the merchant A.I. Vakhrushev. With the latter's funds, in March 1909, the wooden floors in the Trinity Church were replaced. In 1911, the estate near the village of Troitsky, Vorontsovo and Zyuzinsky volost, Moscow district, was bought for 250,000 rubles by Moscow lawyer, attorney-at-law Evgeniy Adamovich Grinbaum, who lived in Moscow on Bolshaya Polyanka Street, 54. It belonged to him 244 acres 1446 square fathoms of land, of which there was an estate - 36 acres, with an ancient park, vegetable gardens and berry fields, with 40 buildings, of which 15 were stone.

In 1912 E.A. Greenbaum implemented the idea expressed back in 1855 by the rector of the Trinity Church, Fr. Alexy Sinaisky, and built on the former church land in “the area near the village of Troitsky, Vorontsovo at the 6th verst of the Kaluga highway,” a brick factory “serving the needs of the estate and producing 500,000 bricks.”

In December 1905, the rector of the Holy Trinity Church in Vorontsovo, Archpriest Mikhail Tretyakov, was highly awarded “for 50 years of service in the priesthood with the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree.”

In 1910 the population in Trinity Parish consisted of 229 people. The church received only 70 rubles and 50 kopecks in annual income.

For the interest on the money that was deposited in the bank in favor of the clergy Repnina and Mukhanov, the position of the priest and psalm-reader was “insufficient.” The documents indicated the postal address of the church: Moscow, Kaluzhskaya street, I.M. store. Lavrova.After the death of rector M.V. Tretyakov, who served in the Trinity Church for 55 years, in 1909, with the blessing of Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Vladimir (Epiphany), a new priest, Nikolai Vasilyevich Arkhangelsk, was appointed to the Trinity Church. The son of a deacon from the Moscow province, Fr. Nikolai graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary in 1892 and was soon ordained to the rural church of Dmitrovsky district. Possessing good teaching abilities (he began his career as a teacher at a parochial school, and then served as an overseer at a theological seminary), Fr. Nikolai served as a teacher of the law in the zemstvo and parish schools of the parishes entrusted to him.

For his immaculate service in Trinity Church, he was awarded by the Diocesan authorities a skufia (1910) and a kamilavka (1915). Since 1906, Nikolai Petrovich Gorsky has been a psalm-reader in Vorontsovo, who joined the parish immediately after participating as a warrior in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Before the war, he studied at the Perervinsky Theological School. From 1911 to 1916, a native of the village of Vorontsov, a graduate of the Moscow Commercial School, lieutenant of the Kiev Grenadier Regiment, Alexei Vasilyevich Kruglov, was elected church warden of the Trinity Church.

In 1909, the Trinity parish was visited by His Grace Bishop Trifon of Dmitrov (Turkestan). According to the clergy registers for 1911 - 1913, the elderly widows of the priest and psalmist of the Trinity Church, Maria Georgievna Tretyakova and Maria Nikolaevna Kistrina, are mentioned among the inhabitants of the church “priest”.

One of the few surviving descriptions of the Holy Trinity Church dates back to 1910, made on the orders of the Insurance Department Holy Synod. It was compiled by Fr. Nicholas Arkhangelsky according to the form sent. We present it in full:“The length of the church, including the bell tower is 7 fathoms, 2 arshins, the greatest width is 8 fathoms, the height to the top of the cornice is 2 fathoms, the church has one large dome and one small one on the bell tower, 12 large windows, 3 small windows in the dome, 3 doors wooden, 1 iron, central iconostasis 4 fathoms long, 2 fathoms high, 1 arshin, iconostasis in the chapel 7 arshins long. The last surviving clergy register of the Trinity Church of the second deanery district of churches in the Moscow district for 1916 contains the following information about the Trinity-Vorontsov parish: “a stone two-altar church with a bell tower, all warm, covered with iron, solid, the clergy consists of a priest and a psalm-reader, the church has 2 acres of estate land, the clergyman lives in dilapidated stone houses,” owned by E. A. Greenbaum. . In addition to the church building itself, the Trinity community owned a wooden gatehouse and a woodshed. The church elder since 1916 was a peasant from the village of Vorontsov, Andrey Yakovlevich Shevelev. With the outbreak of the First World War, dog-breaker N.P. Gorsky was drafted into the active army. In total, in the parish of the Trinity Church, shortly before the revolutionary events, there were 42 households with a population of 213 people.

V. Post-revolutionary time.

§ 5.1. Closing of the temple.

The Bolshevik revolution and the ongoing persecution of faith and the church left a tragic mark on the history of the Holy Trinity Church in Vorontsovo, turning the temple into a place of desolation and ruins. Initially, in the 1920s, “the community of the Holy Trinity Church in the village of Vorontsovo, Zyuzinsky volost, Leninsky district,” as it was called in registration documents, received legalization from the new authorities. In July 1925, an agreement was signed between the local police department and the parish council.

It is known that the Trinity community in Vorontsovo, led by its rector, actively participated in the district Pomgol, collecting funds to help the starving people of the Volga region. However, by decision of the authorities, on April 27, 1922, the confiscation of church valuables took place, the act of which was signed by the representative of the district Council of Deputies and the head of the parish community, priest N.V. Arkhangelsky. The register of confiscated church and sacristy items mentioned 34 items made of gilded silver: boards, squares and clasps from the Gospels, a censer, a tabernacle, ladles, plates, a bowl with a lid and other valuables. The Trinity Religious Society, under an agreement with the Moscow District Council of Deputies, was given for use a “brick one-story church with a brick church gatehouse 7x7 arshins.” On the part of the believers, the agreement was signed by 30 active parishioners, of whom the Zavarzin, Shevelev, Chernov, and Khromov families especially stood out. Andrei Fedorovich Sorokin was elected chairman of the meeting of believers of the Trinity parish, and Sergei Stepanovich Zavarzin was elected secretary. The clergy of the temple from 1917 to 1929 consisted of two people: rector Nicholas of Arkhangelsk (in1925, his age is shown as 51 years old) and the psalm-reader Nikolai Gorsky who returned from the war. From the inventory of the church and sacristy property of the Holy Trinity Church, dated 1925, the church had a central iconostasis “two-tiered, marbled, with columns, the royal doors are carved, gilded, the iconostasis ends with a large four-pointed cross.” The side-side, Sergievsky, iconostasis was “single-tier, carved, gilded, with carved gilded royal doors.” All the icons in the iconostasis were painted. In separate oak cases with bronze, the revered icons of the Appearance of the Mother of God to St. Sergius and the Don Icon of the Mother of God were placed. In the local tier of the main iconostasis, on the right side of the royal doors, there was a temple image of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity measuring 2 arshins 4 vershoks by 2 arshins 1 vershok. Of the sacristy items left by the Pomgol commission in the church, silver gilded liturgical vessels, an altar cross, a tabernacle and a monstrance were mentioned. There were 5 bells hanging on the bell tower, of which the largest weighed 35 pounds, and the smallest weighed 20 pounds.

The Orthodox community in Vorontsovo strictly adhered to the Patriarchal Church, not deviating into any schism. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the temple was closed and the clergy were repressed. The temple building was occupied by mechanical workshops of the pig state farm of the OGPU NKVD. Some of the icons and sacristy items were transferred to the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in the village of Tropareva, which, in turn, was closed in 1935 after the death of the rector, Fr. Vasily Mikhailovich Lebedev and occupied for the needs of the state farm, later - a mechanical plant. In February 1944, the Vorontsovo Rural Consumer Society asked permission from the Lenin District Council to use the church premises in the village of Vorontsovo as a warehouse, “since this premises is currently not occupied by anyone.” On March 2, 1944, the decision of the Lenin District Executive Committee was made: “Due to the need for the Vorontsov general store to provide premises for a production enterprise, the Executive Committee decided, according to the request, to transfer the currently empty Vorontsov church to the Vorontsov general store.”

§. 5.2. 2nd half of 20th century

During the Khrushchev “thaw”, when the state farm in Vorontsovo was liquidated, the local authorities transferred the church building to the workshop of a toy factory. At the same time, there was an attempt by local residents of the village of Vorontsovo, Leninsky district, to open an Orthodox parish. In 1956, on the initiative of village resident V.M. Komarova, an application was submitted to the Commissioner for Affairs of the Orthodox Russian Church in Moscow and the Moscow Region A. A. Trushin with a request to open a parish at the cemetery. Here are a few excerpts from this document of brave and honest people who were not afraid to give their names during the years of persecution: “Each of us has lived in this village for a long time and each of us has our own special historical connections. One of these connections is that many of us have relatives and friends buried in the cemetery, which is not neglected and is maintained in a certain order. In this cemetery there is a church building, on which, by the way, there is a plaque “Monument of Architectural Architecture” attached. For us, it is also a monument, although the church is not active, but the elderly people of the village treat it with respect and protect it as a perpetuation of memory. It must be said that the cemetery is adjacent to the forest, and the church stands on its edge. On certain days, everyone who has connections with the cemetery comes to the graves of their relatives and is always used to seeing a silent church, as if mourning with each of us.” As with most such statements, the callous official sent a formal reply with a refusal.

The toy factory successfully existed for more than 10 years, contributing to the further destruction of the “architectural monument.” In 1960, Vorontsovo became part of Greater Moscow, and mass residential development began in the area of ​​the former village. The wooden houses of local residents who have been relocated to new apartments are being demolished. In the 1970s and 1980s, a multi-storey microdistrict was built around the estate, which received the name “Vorontsovo”.

The last act of vandalism of the “Soviet era” in Vorontsov was the destruction of the parish cemetery under the tracks of bulldozers for the “improvement” of the estate on the eve of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. At this time, the tombstone that stood at the altar of the temple was destroyed. The inscription read: “Archpriest Mikhail Vasilyevich and Maria Egorovna Tretyakov. Their service at this temple was 55 years. 1855-1909." This was already perceived as a kind of finale. The ruins, bare brick walls without roofs, did not resemble the Trinity Church, but seemed to be the remains of some kind of economic building in the estate park. Most passers-by had no idea, walking or running past the “picturesque ruins”, about the past life of this place, which gave it the Holy name in honor of the Life-Giving and Undivided Trinity and was under the patronage of the intercessor and prayer book of the Russian Land, St. Sergius of Radonezh -whom. And a miracle happened!

VI. Restoring parish life in our time.

At the beginning of 1990, Orthodox residents of the Vorontsovo microdistrict began collecting signatures with the goal of opening a parish. And then, on February 12, 1990, by decree of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Pimen, Archpriest Fr. Sergius Polyakov, who previously served in the Church of the Renewal of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ on Arbat (Jerusalem Patriarchal Compound). A graduate of Moscow Theological schools, Archpriest Sergius comes from a hereditary family of priests. He is the grandson of a famous Moscow priest in the 1920s and 1930s - new martyr and confessor Fr. Vladimir Medvedyuk, who served in the Church of St. Mitrofan of Voronezh in Petrovsko-Razumovsky Proezd. At the cost of arrest and repression Fr. Vladimir defended this temple from the encroachments of the Renovationists, went through the Solovetsky special camp and, like many Russian martyrs and passion-bearers of the 20th century, suffered martyrdom at the Butovo training ground in December 1937. The rector’s father is a mitered archpriest, disabled during the Great Patriotic War, awarded many military orders, Ruf Polyakov served as rector of various churches of the Moscow diocese and in recent years in the Church of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity in the village of Troitsky in Istra, Istrinsky district, Moscow region.

In the winter of 1990, on the site of the temple in Vorontsov Park, one could only see ruins with a pile of rubbish and bricks. At first, the abbot could not find the location of his church, and only inquiries from local residents helped him see everything that remained ofShrines. The initial confusion went away. There was no room for despondency, and, according to Fr. Sergius, the Lord called to cultivate His field. On May 23, 1990, on the ruins of the “architectural monument” Fr. Sergius performed the first divine service. And from that time on, services were held regularly. Every Saturday and Sunday, prayers and memorial services were held here, regardless of the weather - rain or snow. Instead of the vault and dome of the temple, the sky opened above the parishioners, and the first words of prayers and sighs rushed there, and the wind, as if in response, swayed the fire of candles, laboriously attached to the broken bricks of the walls of the building. And how many difficulties arose in those days! There were no books, utensils, or vestments. And the first to respond was the rector of the St. Nicholas Church in the Preobrazhensky cemetery in Moscow, Archpriest Leonid Kuzminov. He presented the temple with a complete set of liturgical books for the annual cycle, crowns, and the Church Council transferred funds. And in the future, this temple did not leave the Trinity parish with its attention and participation. Many parishioners of the Arbat church, who followed their shepherd to raise a new parish, became great assistants to the rector. The main task of starting construction was collecting funds and necessary materials. In 1990-1991, the Church Council sent out more than 80 letters to various organizations asking for help, which was promptly forthcoming. The execution of design documentation for the restoration of the Trinity Church was undertaken by the Goskhimproekt Institute.

The project for restoring the destroyed church building was carried out by Moscow architect-restorer N. G. Mukhin. In 1991, the first builders, led by V.N. Kiselev (MP “Vozrozhdenie”) began to erect the walls of the temple and added an altar apse. By 1992, the dome and cross with titanium coating were restored, the floor in the temple and altar was laid out with marble, and a throne was built from blue and white marble; in 1993 a heating main was installed. During the work on the foundation of the altar, the remains of Archpriest Mikhail Tretyakov were found and the grave of Archpriest Mikhail Tretyakov was restored. On October 1, 1991, almost 60 years later, Archpriest Sergius celebrated the first Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vorontsovo. (A photograph of the appearance of the temple at that time is presented in Appendix 6.)

In 1994, after four years of restoration work, the temple was transformed: the internal and external appearance of the building was restored, with a sparkling cross erected, beautiful cases were made for locally revered icons, and a small bell tower was rebuilt. By 1995, the Trinity Church acquired a splendid appearance: a fundamental fence was erected around the church, and the territory was landscaped (flower beds and lawns were laid out). On January 4, 1995, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II “For diligent service to the Church of God and the initiative to organize line of work associated with the restoration of the destroyed temple and diligent service in it from the moment of its opening” awarded Archpriest Sergius Polyakov with a Cross with decorations.

In 1995, the community began painting the temple, and in 1996 the iconostasis was installed. Since the fall of 1991, a Sunday school has been opened at the Holy Trinity Church, in which experienced teachers teach children The law of God, church history, church singing, Orthodox architecture and drawing, beadwork.

Since the first services back in 1990, the regent T. B. Shuvalova has been working in the church, creating a good singing group. For a long time, she sang for free at services together with E.V. Krupina, since many professional singers were afraid of the harsh “climatic” conditions of the ruined temple and refused to work. Then a quartet was formed. Since 1995, choirs have been established in the church, from which a composition of 7 people performs complex choral works by Bortnyansky, Chesnokov and other famous Orthodox composers. A wonderful children's choir has gathered from Sunday school students in Holy Trinity Parish, currently consisting of 14 children from 6 to 15 years old. They usually participate in services on the great holidays of the Nativity of Christ, Easter, and on the church day of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity. The children's voices singing the Christmas Irmos make a special impression. Children also take part in Christmas performances at the annual Christmas tree party held in Trinity parish. Unfortunately, the material difficulties of our time do not allow us to begin building the church house necessary for a large parish, which would house a baptistry, a sacristy, a Sunday school, a library, and office offices. Now all Sunday school classes are held in the church itself and in small utility rooms - trailers. The local kindergarten has been providing space for Christmas trees for several years now. The project of a church house in a style close to the architecture of the Trinity Church has existed for a long time, and the parish hopes to begin its construction in the near future with the help of benefactors.

In 2007, the Trinity parish solemnly celebrated the 200th anniversary of the temple. The church has been restored inside and out, as if decades of abuse had never happened.