The Church of the Resurrection, built before 1360, was the first stone church in the Kremlin.
It is situated on the northern side of the Assumption Cathedral. It is not just the most ancient building of the Kremlin. It is the only piece of a grand-ducal palace or rather its house church that has survived till our days.
In the 14th to 16th centuries, a whole town was situated here. Rooms of the tsar, tsarina, grand princes, a dining room, a service room, stables, and a garden were raised on high basements. This was why the northern portal of the Assumption Cathedral was richly decorated with carvings, since it faced the palace.
Three entrance doors (portals) of the Church were adorned with small columns and beads. A passage connected the Church and the grand-ducal palace. The passage was low and leaded directly to the gallery in the western part of the Church. The elegant Church's top, crowned with a helmet-shaped dome, resembled a cedar cone.
One of the most important events in the Russian history happened in this church or rather in the preceding wooden church. On 18 January 1366, Dmitry Donskoy and Eudoxia Suzdalskaya (St. Eudoxia of Moscow) got married there. They were married in Kolomna for two reasons. First of all, at that time, the plague was raging in Moscow and all its surroundings. Secondly, in 1365, Moscow and its suburbs were burned down.
The Resurrection Church was one of the book cultural centres. In the early 15th century, a scribe, priest Theodotos, served there. Two of his manuscripts have survived. A whole manuscript collection was kept in the Church's sacristy. The Harrowing of Hell Icon, painted in the second half of the 14th century, and the 15th-century Old Testament Trinity, one of the early copies of the Trinity by Andrey Rublev, were moved to the State Tretyakov Gallery from there.
In the 1480s, a new church was built. It was a monument to independence of Russia and greatness of the new Tsar's power.
In 1786, it was reconstructed. Internal columns were demolished; windows were enlarged; a quadrangle was built over and covered with a vault. It became quite a common provincial Baroque church.
In 1812, a new large refectory and a bell tower were added from the west.
In 1929, the Church was shut down.
In Soviet times, it was used as a warehouse. The bell tower was demolished; the dome and the drum were dismantled.
Thanks to the Synod's efforts, in the 1990s, the building was handed over to the Church. A famous Kolomna icon-painting workshop temporarily occupied it.
In 2003, the reconstruction works were started with the roof replacement.
The Church of St. Nicholas the Merchants' Saint is one of Kolomna Kremlin's oldest architectural monuments. In 1501, to mark the day of Amos the Prophet, the Church was covered with stone.
The Church's name comes from the fact that it was built using the funds of large merchants (in particular, the funds of Vasily Yuryev, a very rich merchant). ...
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