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Churches in St. Sergius Lavra

Churches in St. Sergius Lavra

The picture from the "Russian Vatican" (Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra), which is located about 70 km on the North from the city. You can see here two beautiful churches built in defferrent times and styles of architecture. On the moment when I was taking several shots during excursion with my clients, several people with monk walked and talked nearby.

White color church on the background of this picture is the church in the name of St. Zosima and St. Sabbatius of the Solovets monastery. It was constructed in 1635-1638 by the cellarer of the monastery Alexander Bulatnikov, who had come to the Lavra from Solovets Monastery. Before Soviet revolution 1917, the building was used as a hospital for sick monks and as an almhouse for old and disabled ones.

The main church on this picture, in the middle (blue color), is the church in the name of Our Lady of Smolensk. Here is the story about it... On the outside wall of the monastery stone kitchen, constructed in the 15th century by the eminent Russian architect V.D. Yermolin, there was an icon of the Mother God "Our Lady of Smolensk", carved in stone. When in 1730 a monastery monk, whose arms had been twisted by rheumatism, was ardently praying in front of it, a miracle took place - he was cured of his desease. In honor of this miraculous healing the Smolenkaya Church was erected on the site of the kitchen by order of the Empress Elizabeth in 1746-1748. The money for the constructon was donated by Duke Razumovsky. The richly decorated miracle-working icon stood in the gilded carved iconostasis to the right of the Royal Gate. In 1920-1930 (after revolution) the iconostasis was lost. To replace it, the iconostasis from one of the distroyded Moscow churches was installed here in 1956. At present, the miracle-working icon "Our Lady of Smolensk" is at the local museum. A plaster copy of it, bigger in size, is in the altar recess outside the church...

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Lynn Snyder
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Date: 2006-06-24 01:14:00

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