Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Church of John the Baptist, which is under the pine forest, with the clergy house

On the steep and high bank of the Moscow River, on the territory, stands a beautiful monument of Russian architecture - the Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo.

In the 16th century, the royal residence was located in this place. The history of architectural monuments of this period contains many contradictions and mysteries, despite the ongoing interest of scientists and researchers.

Photo 1. Temple of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo in Moscow

It is believed that the construction of the church commemorates the conception or birth of Tsar Ivan IV, the long-awaited heir to the throne. Due to the fact that Vasily III intended to give the heir the name of his grandfather Ivan III, it is dedicated to John the Baptist.

This temple is unusual and very interesting in its architecture. The symmetrical group consists of five octagonal pillars, isolated from each other. Four of them, one side adjacent to the central pillar, are connected by a common gallery. All this rests on a common foundation. The central tower is 34.5 meters high, the rest are 17 meters high. Each tower has its own entrance and separate altar.

Photo 2. The white stone church is located on the territory

Museum-Reserve "Kolomenskoye"

The main pillar is dedicated to the Beheading of John the Baptist. Its top is very interesting in architectural design.

The octagon rises above triangular kokoshniks in two rows, the tradition of erecting which dates back to Pskov architecture. Above it there is a volume composed of large semi-cylinders, above which, in turn, there are smaller cylinders. This is followed by a tall drum, decorated with panels. All this ends with a helmet-shaped dome. The octagon of the main pillar has large round windows oriented to the cardinal points and cutting through the lower row of kokoshniks.

The tiers of the other four pillars are also decorated with panels. Three rows of triangular and semicircular kokoshniks lead to helmet-shaped domes. Above the center of the gallery there is a two-bay belfry.

The unity of the decor, the connecting role of the galleries and the multi-tiered structure contribute to the perception of the temple of five octagons as a powerful monolithic composition with a central solution.

It is assumed that the authors of the church in Dyakovo were the architects Postnik and Barm. During the construction, tombstones dating from 1534-1535 were used. This fact gives us the right to believe that this unique ancient temple was built after 1535.

From 1924 to 1929 the church was closed. Then, from 1949 to 1957, services were held again. After that it was abandoned for many years. The interior decoration and paintings of the temple have not been preserved. In 1980, the cemetery at the church was also liquidated.

The new consecration of the church took place in 1992. Quite recently, a thorough restoration of this outstanding architectural monument of the 16th century was completed. Divine services in the temple are held regularly.

The Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo is located at: Moscow, Andropov Avenue, 39 (Kashirskaya and Kolomenskoye metro stations).

The son and heir of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III, the future first Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible was destined to lose his father early and ascend to the Moscow throne at the age of three. Around the boy ruler, ugly intrigues and a struggle for power and access to the treasury immediately began between his relatives and associates. No one paid attention to raising the child or even simply caring for him. After the death of his mother (poisoned by court conspirators), seven-year-old Ivan had a very hard time; he later recalled that he often sat hungry because no one cared that he and his brother were fed on time.

View of Kolomenskoye from the left bank of the Moscow River

In the sixteenth century, the similarities between the two temples were even more noticeable. The majestic temple on Red Square was not initially distinguished by the multicolored design to which we are accustomed - various colors appeared only in the 19th century - 19th century X centuries. And according to the architects' plan, it was red and white. The church in Dyakovo was decorated in the same way. This can be seen in the painting by N.E. Makovsky “View of the church of the village of Dyakovo in Kolomenskoye near Moscow”, written in 1872. Nowadays the church has become completely white. Its white walls are in harmony with the magnificent Church of the Ascension, forming a single architectural ensemble.

Nikolai Makovsky

But, unlike the Church of the Ascension, which is visible from a distance to everyone who approaches Kolomenskoye, the Church of the Baptist “hides” to the side, in the forest. Walking through the forest, you can find a wooden staircase; it leads to a hill, on the top of which there is a temple, and at the foot there is a stream that does not freeze even in severe frosts. The Church of the Baptist opens only to those who have risen to the top steps of the ladder.
The secluded temple has become one of the main points of search for the famous library of Ivan the Terrible, “Liberia,” the mystery of whose location scientists have been struggling with for many decades. There is evidence that in 1564 Grozny took the library to Kolomenskoye. Archaeologist Ignatius Stelletsky, an enthusiastic searcher for the library, carried out large-scale excavations here in the late 1930s, going 7 meters into the hill on which the church was built. This threatened to collapse the building and destroyed the ancient cemetery at the church, where dead local residents continued to be buried. Due to numerous protests, the excavations were stopped, although Stelletsky managed to discover ancient limestone masonry deep in the hill. The war that began soon finally put an end to archaeological research under the Church of the Baptist.
The temple partially preserves old paintings that were discovered during restoration in the 1960s. True, their symbolism and coloring turned out to be so mysterious that researchers still have not decided on an interpretation. For example, many questions are raised by the image of a circle with spirals made of bricks, made in red, discovered in the central part of the temple - similar symbols have not been found in other churches, and it is still not possible to unravel the meaning of this image.
Another surprise was that the floors in the temple, back in the time of Ivan the Terrible, were made of... tombstones. For the sixteenth century, this seems an amazing disrespect for the memory of the dead, blasphemy and sacrilege; such things became commonplace only in the twentieth century, in post-revolutionary Moscow.

By the 1980s, the Baptist Church was abandoned and forgotten by everyone; The cemetery was closed under her. It was destroyed by bad weather and vandals who wandered into this secluded place. In 1988, the famous singer Igor Talkov, walking in Kolomenskoye, found himself near the dilapidated Church of the Baptist and picked up a cross that had been thrown from it from the ground. The cross was mangled and mutilated; As a believer, Talkov decided to save the shrine from destruction and brought the heavy cross to his home, hoping to return it if restoration began in the church. But he did not have time to do this due to his early, tragic death. After Talkov’s death, his fans paid attention to the incident with the cross, described by the singer in the autobiographical book “Monologue”, and began to look for mystical connections with the fate of the singer, talking about his “way of the cross” and “torment of the cross”...

The temple was returned to believers and re-consecrated in 1992. Currently, the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist is active. During the restoration in 2009, it was completely restored.

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Photo from the 1980s.

The Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo is one of those monuments of Moscow stone architecture of the 16th century, the history of which, despite the many years of interest of scientists, continues to be fraught with many mysteries and contradictions. Throughout almost the entire existence of our science, the temple has enjoyed the constant attention of researchers. This is explained by the fact that it occupies a special place in the concept of one of the lines of development of architecture of the 16th century, which was formed in the first works on the history of Moscow architecture, leading to the creation of the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat.

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Lithography. 1860s

View of the temple from the south. Photo from the beginning of the 20th century.

Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo. Reconstruction by M.P. Kudryavtsev in the mid-16th century.

The unusualness of the church is not only in its fundamental nature and unique composition. The decorative design in the form of barrel turrets encircling the central drum is not at all typical.

Fragments of the original painting on the domed vault of the central pillar. Photo from the 1960s.
Fragments of the original painting were cleared in 1962 - an image of a circle with spirals of bricks, painted in red. Its meaning has not yet been revealed. Another one of the mysteries.

Belfry. Photo from the 1980s.

I visited there several times as a child. The temple was open and completely dirty.
Before the Olympics, the temple was closed, but at the same time the cemetery surrounding the temple was destroyed. Limestone tombstones from the 17th - 19th centuries were destroyed. A stream flowing nearby was taken into a pipe. And finally, the village of Dyakovo was completely demolished.
They improved the territory, so to speak...
At the same time, the unique village of Zhuzha, located nearby, was also demolished. Wooden houses, many of which were guarded, were destroyed. The owners were forcibly relocated to apartment buildings. In hindsight we realized that it was impossible to do this, but...
Sometimes I just don’t understand what drives such “active” freaks. Sometimes the Stalinist Criminal Code comes to mind - Article 58-7 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (sabotage)... up to the highest measure of social protection... Only it was applied, alas, to the wrong people...

View of the temple from the west. 1990

One of the oldest Moscow churches that has survived to this day is the six-altar votive church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Kolomenskoye. According to many researchers, it is older than the famous Church of the Ascension and was founded in 1529 by order of the childless Vasily III near Kolomenskoye in the village of Dyakovo with a prayer for the granting of an heir to the throne to the Grand Duke.

Many facts support this version. The main altar is dedicated to John the Baptist, which indicates the sovereign’s desire to have an heir, the namesake ancestor of the Moscow princes, Ivan Kalita. The prayer for conception was expressed in the dedication of the side chapel to St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of the chapels is dedicated to the Apostle Thomas, who at first did not believe in the Resurrection of Christ, which symbolizes the sovereign’s awareness of the sinfulness of unbelief and doubt. The dedication of another chapel to St. Metropolitan Peter, the patron saint of the Kalita family, expresses a prayer for the sending of a miracle. Another throne was consecrated in honor of the saints Tsar Constantine the Great and his mother Elena, which indicates an appeal to the heavenly patroness Elena Glinskaya.

This temple was also the forerunner of St. Basil's Cathedral - both in its architectural form and in its interior decoration: a flame-shaped swastika is depicted on the inner surface of the head of the cathedral, as well as inside the head of the Intercession Tent. In ancient Russian churches, this sign of a flame-shaped spiral swastika in the 16th century sometimes replaces the image of Christ on the dome and symbolizes the spiritual opening of the human soul to heaven and the eternal movement towards God.

In honor of the birth of his son, Vasily III ordered the following year, 1531, to build the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Stary Vagankovo, (between Volkhonka and Znamenka), which was abolished long before the revolution.

And soon after the birth of the son of Vasily III - the future Ivan the Terrible - the Ivanovo Monastery appeared in Moscow on Kulishki. A beautiful view of its majestic towers opens from Starosadsky Lane. Its cathedral church was consecrated in the name of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and hence the Moscow name of the monastery: “Ivanovo Monastery, on Kulishki, near Bor.”

It was founded back in the 15th century, and perhaps dates back to the very first Moscow church built in the Kremlin in the name of the Nativity of John the Baptist (which stood on the site of the Grand Kremlin Palace) - hence the name “under the pine forest”.

And here, on a steep hill near Kulishki, later nicknamed Ivanovskaya Gorka, the monastery was probably founded by the mother of Ivan the Terrible, Elena Glinskaya, in honor of her son’s name day. Perhaps he himself did this when he ascended the Russian throne. Sometimes the founding of the monastery is attributed to Grand Duke John III, who laid out the magnificent Sovereign Gardens in this area, immortalized in the name of the nearby Starosadsky Lane. Around the same time, a slender white church appeared here in the name of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir in Old Gardens. One of the oldest in Moscow, it was built at the beginning of the 16th century by the Italian architect Aleviz Novy, the architect of the Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin. The order for this church and in this area was the highest.

The location for the monastery was very suitable for monastic life: the monastery was located in the center of the city, but in the silence of the narrow Moscow streets, where even random passers-by did not disturb the solitude of the nuns. And only once a year was it noisy, crowded and even fun.

In their free time from divine services, the nuns were engaged in spinning and winding wool, knitting woolen stockings, and spinning lace. On the monastery holiday of the Beheading of John the Baptist, August 29 according to the old style, or, in the common folk way, on the day of Ivan Lent, in the old days there was a “women’s” fair near the monastery, where they traded wool and threads. Peasant women from all over Moscow flocked to it.

According to one of the last decrees of Empress Elizabeth, the Ivanovo Monastery was intended to provide charity for widows and orphans of noble and honored people. And here, behind the impregnable monastery walls, women involved in criminal and political affairs were hidden under great secrecy. They were brought, sometimes under the guise of madmen, directly from the Detective Prikaz or the Secret Chancellery.

The wife of Vasily Shuisky, Queen Marya, who was forcibly tonsured a nun, was imprisoned here; the second wife of Ivan the Terrible's eldest son, Tsarevich Ivan, Pelagia, who died only in 1620. It is possible that it was here that Princess Augusta Tarakanova spent her last 15 years of life, hidden under the name of nun Dosifei. As you know, Tarakanova was considered the daughter of Elizaveta Petrovna and Count Razumovsky, and Catherine the Great saw in her a threat to her stay on the Russian throne.

The mysterious nun Dosithea languished in captivity in the Ivanovo Monastery since 1785. They brought her at night, in a carriage, wrapped in black, accompanied by mounted officers. A brick house was built for her next to the abbess’s residence, and large transfers were received for her maintenance. She lived completely alone, they took her to church at night, and then the service was performed only for her alone, in a locked church. In 1810, Dosithea died at the age of 64, and she was buried with solemnity, unusual for a simple nun, in the Novospassky Monastery, the family tomb of the Romanovs. This only confirms the guesses about the highest origin of the nun. Although, according to another version, Princess Tarakanova was imprisoned in St. Petersburg, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she died of consumption.

Here, in a damp monastery crypt under the cathedral church, and then in a cramped cell, the “torturer and murderer” landowner Daria Saltykova, imprisoned here for life by decree of the same Catherine the Great, spent 33 years under guard. She sat for a long time in the earthen basement of the monastery, completely deprived of light. Several times a day, a specially appointed nun brought her food and a candle, which she took along with the dishes. The long imprisonment did not at all change the character of the former “cannibal” landowner: through the window bars she desperately scolded passers-by who came to look at the terrible Saltychikha.

She left her prison only in a coffin. In 1800, Daria Saltykova died at the age of 68 and was buried in the Donskoy Monastery cemetery.

During Napoleon's invasion, the Ivanovo Monastery was burned to the ground - so much so that it was even abolished. The former cathedral church became an ordinary parish church, and the monastic cells housed employees of the Synodal Printing House, located nearby on Nikolskaya Street. At the same time, the old cells were broken, including the one where Dosithea lived.

Only at the request of Metropolitan Philaret did Emperor Alexander II allow the Ivanovo Monastery to be restored again. In its modern form, it was built in 1861-1878 by the architect M.D. Bykovsky and consecrated in 1879. Meanwhile, already in 1877, on the territory of the monastery under construction, the only infirmary in Moscow for the wounded of the Russian-Turkish war was located.

The dark history of the monastery continued in the 20th century. Since 1918, the transit prison of the Cheka, and then the NKVD, was located here. The prisoners, having improved the moment, could occasionally throw a note out of the window, where they informed their relatives about themselves. They could only rely on random and conscientious passers-by...

In the year, in the Ioannovsky “under the forest” monastery, on behalf of Grand Duke Vasily III, the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin (“New”) erected a stone church of the Beheading of John the Baptist on the site of a dilapidated wooden monastery church, consecrated on August 29 of the year. This was probably the first stone temple in Zarechye.

In the year, at the walls of the Church of John the Baptist, the Tsar, the Metropolitan and ordinary believers solemnly greeted the holy relics of Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and his faithful boyar Theodore, transferred from Chernigov. In memory of this meeting, a wooden temple was built in the name of the Chernigov miracle workers, the first mention of which dates back to the year. In the year, in its place there arose a stone five-domed single-altar church of the martyrs Michael and Theodore, which has survived to this day.

The Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist was destroyed in the year at the height of the Time of Troubles. This year it was rebuilt again. White stone fragments from the Aleviz building have been preserved in the foundations and basement of the currently existing temple. Therefore, 1658 is usually considered the year the temple was built. A stone bell tower was erected near the western wall, but was soon dismantled due to damage.

In the 18th century, the main volume of the temple was altered - its completion was changed. Therefore, you can see a mixture of styles in it: the design of the walls corresponds to the ancient Russian architecture of the 17th century (windows with stacked columns and kokoshniks, runner, curb), and the completion of the temple (semi-domes, octagonal drum) is typical of Russian Baroque.

In 1758-60. a refectory was built (also baroque). In 1780 or 1781, after dismantling the old bell tower, a new, separate one was built. It already shows the features of the transition from Baroque to Classicism.

At the end of the 19th century, a western porch was added, and at the beginning of the century, a porch with a porch was added.

The temple was renovated every year, in 1896-1904. (F.O. Shekhtel took part in these works).

In the year the churches of the Chernigov metochion were closed. They were occupied by various organizations.

In the year ahead of the 1980 Olympic Games, both churches with a bell tower underwent partial restoration. Domes and crosses reappeared, and fragments of paintings from the 17th and 19th centuries were discovered in the interiors. The fence with a lattice was restored, the domes were covered with emerald tiles.

By the beginning of the 1990s. The building housed the exhibition hall of the GIS "Art Glass".

In the early 1990s, the temple was returned to believers.

In the year, services resumed in the Church of John the Baptist near Bor.