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 of the Apostle John the Evangelist was situated inside Kolomna Kremlin; it was a wooden, gable-roofed church. After it burned down, in 1733, the construction of a new, stone church, with a side-chapel in the name of the Holy Martyr John the Soldier, started beyond the fortress walls, in Lubyanskaya Quarter's Zhytnaya Square. The main works were completed only as late as 1756–1758.
In the late 18th century and the early 19th century, the Church underwent significant rebuilding, and its architectural finish was redone. A high building crowned with a spire and a cross, the Church was richly adorned with a decor of white-stone and moulding. Besides the main altar, in the unheated summer temple, the Church also had two altars in the refectory: one in honour of the Icon of Our Lady of Joy of All Who Sorrow and another one in the name of the Holy Martyr John the Soldier.
In 1819, the bell tower, which threatened to fall down, was disassembled.
In 1826–1846, a new, superb (now-existing) bell tower was erected, by the efforts of Kolomna's merchant Ivan Shaposhnikov. It featured seven bells, with the largest of them being 347 Russian "puds" (around 5,700 kilograms or 12,500 pounds). A standalone building at first (connected with the refectory in 1852), it was built to a design that foresaw the construction of four blocks of shops around the Church (funds provided by these shops were used to maintain the Church itself and a church school). Built only as late as 1865 to a design by I. Dagayev, the shops were rebuilt in the 1960s by M. Bondarev.
The Church's iconostasis was created in 1835 by the goldsmith Yegor Ikonnikov, an employee at the Bishop's Court of the city of Tula. The Church's wall painting was done by the painter Feofan Dremyazgin, a commoner from Kolomna, assisted by Apollon Stepanov and Mitrofan Fyodorov, commoners from the city of Kaluga. New icons were painted by the same Dremyazgin and the Moscow iconographer Pyotr Nikitich Lykov.
In 1848, the iconostases of the side-chapels were set up. These were a beautiful composition in the form of a triumphal arch of colonnades. When, in 1909, there was an attempt to replace the iconostases, them being old, the Moscow Archaeological Society did not agree to that because of their "beauty and artistic interest". The rebuilding of the Church was undertaken to immortalise the Russian army's victories over Napoleon. After the works were completed, on 28 August 1848 the Church was reconsecrated by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow and Kolomna.
The Church's main icon, the one of the Apostle John the Evangelist, was painted against a golden background and decorated with precious, silver hanging votives. Another highly-venerated icon was the 14th-century icon of St. Nicolas the Holy Hierarch, depicting scenes of his life (the Church keeps a copy, while the original is kept at the Tretyakov Gallery). With the blessing of the Holy Hierarch Philaret, the metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, a unique 16th-century white-stone icon (bas-relief), "Our Lady with the Christ Child and the Future Apostle John the Evangelist", was transferred to a niche in the northern wall.
In 1929, the Church of St. John the Evangelist was shut down, and its church plate and ornaments were looted and sold away. Many of its icons were publicly burned in Zhitnaya Square. The Church's building housed a shop's warehouse, the office of a chief architect and a college of commerce.
For a long time, this Kolomna's historic symbol that now has the status of a monument of federal importance and one of Kolomna's best examples of a large urban church that combines different motifs of 18th-century Classicism remained neglected and desecrated. During those years, the Church suffered a lot of damage, both inside and outside.
After the Church was shut down, its bell tower was damaged: its spire was demolished, and the building itself was gradually becoming dilapidated. In time, this was rectified. In the 1950s, a partial restoration of the bell tower was done, followed by a complete restoration in 1960–1962. The works, supervised by the architect V. Belov, were done by Moscow Region Research Restoration Workshop. The bell tower was plastered and painted with long-lasting paint. Its dome was repaired: a new spire and an "apple" in the form of a corrugated vase, 1.33 meters (4.4 feet) in diameter, were made of roof steel. It was also then that decorative vases were installed in the corners of the fourth tier, the model-makers and restorers Fyodor Lyach, Yu. Sarapulov and A. Trofimov reconstructed the moulded decor, and the gilder I. Glukhov gilded the dome and the spire. By November 1962, electric clock had been mounted on the bell tower; created based on the sketches of the engineer A. Weingard, the clock featured four clock-faces, 1.2 meter (4 feet) in diameter, with their digits made of brass and their hands made of sheet aluminium covered with gold leaf. Unfortunately, later this unique work of art would become silent, because its clockwork would be stolen.
In May 1988, another restoration of the bell tower started; in the course of it, the spire was gilded, and a cross was installed on it instead of the needle. After this restoration, a metal structure, which was dubbed "noose", remained on the bell tower. For ten years, this structure had spoiled the appearance of the bell tower until in September 1997, the year of Kolomna's 820th anniversary, it was dismantled by the high-altitude workers of the construction firm Avers.
In the same year, 1997 (in April), the Church of St. John the Evangelist was handed over to the community of the Russian Orthodox Church. The handover was legally confirmed in August 1999. However, the parish received the entire building only as late as 2005.
Since the Church was handed over to the faithful, it has transfigured. Crosses have been shining again over the ancient sanctuary. By the efforts of benefactors and the parish, reconstruction and restoration works are being done, church plate and ornaments are being acquired, new icons are being painted, iconostases have been designed, small bells have been hung, new wrought-iron doors have been installed, etc. Improvement and decoration works are being done not only on the Church's building, but also on the adjacent area.
The Church's precincts have been surrounded with a beautiful fence consisting of stone fence pedestals connected with laced wrought-iron railings. The design was prepared based on old samples. The churchyard has been decorated with flowers, bushes, artificial ponds, paths paved with decorative tiles, street lights, etc. A children's playground has been set up to make the youngest parishioners happy.
At present, church services, including occasional services, take place regularly at the Church. The parish's social work is successfully developing as well. The Church provides a charitable canteen, a clothes-giveaway centre and a tailor's shop. A Sunday school is open. The Church also keeps one of the city's largest church shops.
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