The village of Parfentyevo, a district capital, emerged in the late 15th century – early 16th century at the latest. In the 16th century, it belonged to the Golutvino Monastery of Theophany.
The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonder-Worker is first mentioned in the Monastery's cadastre from the 16th century.
In 1764, on the site of a former, wooden St. Nicholas Church, a new one was built; it burned down in 1833.
For the rebuilding of the burned Church, the parishioners collected 7,280 roubles. Benefactors provided brick.
The design of the Church was commissioned from a Moscow architect, Actual State Counsellor Nikolay Kozlovsky.
Started under Priest Jacob Zdravomyslov in 1835, construction was completed in 1847.
On 19 December 1848, the Church was consecrated by the holy hierarch Philaret, the metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna.
The building was erected in stages. The main part was crowned with a rotunda featuring an ornately shaped spire. On the outside, the lantern rotunda and the drum were decorated with paired columns. In the Church's southern and northern part, large arched niches were set up, with a semi-round window and an entrance door. A slender three-tier belfry, with transitional volumes and paired columns, was added to the Church's western side (the belfry has not survived).
The heated room contains the main altar, in the name of St. Nicolas the Holy Hierarch. The unheated room contains two side-chapels: the first one is in the name of the icon of Our Lady of Tikhvin and the other one is in the name of the Three Holy Hierarchs.
The priests' own houses were situated on the Church's land. The Church owned the stone building of a village school. The parish cemetery even had a wooden chapel. The original church fence, made of white stone and featuring wrought iron railings, has not survived.
In 1840, in a building belonging to the Church, a school for boys was opened, followed in 1860 by a school for girls.
In 1883, a primary state school for peasants was established in the parish; a separate building was built for it some time later.
In the late 19th century, among the singers of the Church's choir, there were workers from the Kolomzavod factory belonging to the Struve brothers.
Under the Soviet authorities, the persecution of the parish worsened in the 1930s.
In 1896–1937, Priest Alexandr Khatuntsev served at the Church. He was born in a clergyman's family in 1862. For a number of years, he taught religious education in a primary state school for peasants. Since 1910, he had been a member of the archdeaconry council. In the autumn of 1937, Fr. Alexander was arrested.
After the dean's arrest, the Church was being prepared for shutting down. It was then that, hoping that they would manage to save the parish, the residents of Parfentyevo Village made a request that Deacon Basil Gorbachyov, a future hieromartyr, be ordained a priest. Fr. Vasily was ordained a priest, but the Church was shut down in 1937 anyway.
Priest Basil Gorbachev was transferred to the church of Bolshiye Vyazemy Village, Zvenigorod District. There, on 15 February 1937, he was also arrested on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda conducted at his former place of service. On 26 February 1938 he was executed by shooting at the Butovo firing range. On 17 July 2001, by a decision of the Holy Synod, Fr. Vasily (Gorbachev) was honoured as a 20th-century Russian neo-martyr and confessor.
In 1938, the bell tower and the fence, which surrounded the church and featured wrought iron railings and a stone foundation, were destroyed, and the church icons were burned.
In Soviet times, the Church first housed a granary and then a recreation centre.
In 1960, the Church's cemetery was destroyed.
In 1991, the Church was handed back to the congregation. That same year, during Christmas, the wooden building of a school hosted the first service, and next Easter the service was performed in the Church, which was already being restored.
On 10 August 1991, a new dome featuring a cross was installed in the Church.
Of the church icons, only the icon of the Three Holy Hierarchs has survived. St. Nicolas Church holds the memory of the hieromartyr Vasily (Gorbachev) in the highest regard. A canopy has been built; it keeps an icon of this saint as well as his personal items (a pectoral cross, a New Testament and a baptism set), which were donated to the Church by his relatives.
The Church also contains bits of holy relics: those of St. Nicholas the Holy Hierarch; the Venerable Startsy of Optino; the Venerable Saints of Diveyevo, Martha, Alexandra and Helen; the Venerable Theodore of Sanaksar and the Venerable Theodore the Soldier (Usahkov).
In 2002, the Church took under its patronage the Chapel of the Icon of Our Lady of Iviron, in the village of Sergyyevskyye Vyselki; once a week, the Chapel hosts prayer services, confessions and communion for its parishioners.
Everybody who has passed by the Church of St. John the Evangelist can never forget its bell tower (67 metres (220 feet) high), as if growing from the shopping centre's building. Built in 1756, this Church, which features the delicate finish of its facades, stands in the courtyard formed by the shopping stalls.
In 1577–1578, a church in the name ...
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