Church of St. Nicholas by the Tverskaya Zastava (Moscow)

8 Butyrsky Val Street, Moscow, Metro station: "Belorusskaya".

In the mid-19th century, a community of Old Believers was established on land belonging to famous merchants Rakhmanovs, by the Tverskaya Zastava. It possessed a wooden chapel and a prayer house.

St. Nicholas's Church by the Tverskaya Zastava (the Old Believer Church) was built instead of the wooden chapel. Construction began in 1914 and continued until 1921. On 16 March 1914, the last church service was held in the old chapel and icons and utensils were carried out. On 29 June, Archbishop John of Moscow consecrated construction.

Architect Ivan Kondratenko, who made the design, was dismissed. Instead of him his colleague, Anton Gurzhienko, was charged to supervise construction work. Building funds were appropriated by major Moscow businessmen P. Ivanov, A. Rusakov, and others.

By the 1917 October Revolution, construction of the church was almost completed. Even bells were hung in the bell tower. However, finishing work took much longer than expected, so the high altar of the Church was consecrated in 1921, which was unique for that time. The side chapel in the bell tower was consecrated and dedicated to St. Elijah the Prophet.

The Church functioned for 14 years only. In 1935, it was shut down. In the 1940s, the Church was occupied by a warehouse of the Local Air Defence Department. Later, it housed a workshop of sculptor Sergey Orlov. It was here that he worked on his statue of Yuri Dolgorukiy. Then, there was the All-Soviet Union Art Workshop named after prominent Soviet sculptor and artist Yevgeny Vuchetich.

In 1989, the Moscow City Hall decided to remove the Workshop from the Church. "Finally, the year 1993 was indicated as the year when it (the Church) would be completed and opened. But now as a concert hall..."

However, fortunately, these happy dreams were never to come true. In 1993, the Church was handed over to Old Believers but not to the All-Union Musical Society. The first public prayer in the St. Elijah's side chapel was held on 2 August 1995.

The Church houses the biggest Moscow bookshop with literature for Old Believers, which was opened in 1993.

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Church of St. Nicholas by the Tverskaya Zastava

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