The village of Upolozye was mentioned in a landholding delimitation registry of 1537 that determined borders of local lands. It was named after its owner and ruler, a Moscow nobleman Aleksey Upolotsky.
In 1584, a wooden Church of St. Michael the Archangel had been already built in the village of Arkhangelskoye-Upolozye situated on the high river bank of the Moscow River.
In the 1660s, under Y. Odoyevsky, a ramshackle wooden church near the patrimonial yard was replaced with a new stone church, the only building of the old estate preserved till our days.
It must be constructed by Pavel Potekhin, a serf architect of the Odoyevsky princely family. This church is much simpler than other Potekhin's buildings in the villages of Nikolsky-Uripin and Markov near Moscow, but for all simplicity of its decor the Church of St. Michael the Archangel excels in harmony and wholeness. The Church has its peculiarities: side chapels (a side chapel of St. John the Baptist and a side chapel of St. Nicholas) are arranged diagonally across the main building that is uncommon; arched floors are supported by only two columns but not four as usual.
"Pashka Potekhin the apprentice", as the architect called himself in documents, chose surprisingly good place: a high abrupt river bank raised the low building, a picturesque silhouette of which with several decorative kokoshniks getting up to the domes looked good against sky and pines if seen from the estate.
The Church of St. John the Evangelist is situated not far from St. Hypatius Monastery. Once, this was a kind of special economic zone (settlers were exempt from a number of taxes) created to attract people who would "feed" the monks. It had belonged to the Monastery since the 15th century. When, in the mid-17th century, monasteries were prohibited ...