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RUSSIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE
THROUGH THE CENTURIES

 
 

The Church of the Trinity of Nikitnikah
(Church of the Georgian Virgin).

 
 

The Church of the Trinity at Nikitnikah in Moscow belongs to the new type of rather small pierless churches which started to appear in Russia during the first half of the 17th century. It was built in 1628-1636 by the rich merchant Grigorii Leontiev Nikitnikov, a native of Yaroslavl, who sometimes helped the tsars during periods of financial difficulty. Rich and ambitious, Nikitnikov wanted his new church to fascinate Muscovites and it was partly because of this that it took so long to finish it completely. After the main church was completed in 1636, he decided to add two chapels, then a porch with a staircase and a belfry which were not finished until 1653. When the plague decimated the population of Moscow, the icon of the Georgian Virgin, which Grigorii's brother Stepan had brought to Russia from Persia, was rushed from the Krasnogorskii Monastery, near the town of Pinega. The icon was kept in the Trinity Church, and legend says that the prayers of the people and he icon saved many in Moscow from the plague and certain death. From that time the church was called the Church of the Georgian Virgin, after the miraculous icon.
The main church was built on a very high basement, partly because of the steep ground on which it rests. Its slim figure was further accentuated by three receding and overlapping (v perebezhku) rows of decorative kokoshniki, ending in five lender drums that carry onion-shaped cupolas. With the exception of the Cathedral of Vasilii the Blessed, the Trinity Church is the most decorated Moscow church. The builders used carved stone ornaments to decorate the brick structure of the church. The window architraves, and portals are covered with carved gegetal ornaments. White stone is also used to decorate the cornices, entablatures, parapets, pilasters, kokoshniki, arch-like friezes etc. The entire interior of the church is covered with frescoes., painted most probably by the best contemporary artists and cleaned by Soviet restorers. On each wall there are four tiers of frescoes that narrate major events and scenes from the Bible, treated by the painters with much freedom. Thus inside the central absid we see for the first time a birch-tree, and in one of the chapels a group portrait of Nikitnikov and his family, dressed in contemporary garments. The iconostasis is one of the most elaborate in existence, and has its tiers of icons. A few of them were painted by Simon Ushakov, and other best "Tsar's izografs." Some of the icons were taken out of the iconstas and moved to various museums.
|We have a photo of Ushakov's home across the small square from the church and of the church itself. Plus more in the Moscow churches directory

 
 

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