The Uspensky Church on Ilyinsky Hill is a 17th-century Orthodox church located in the historic district of Ilyinskaya Sloboda. The stone building was erected in 1672 and is one of the few surviving monuments of Nizhny Novgorod posad architecture of that era. The church is active; in 2004 it underwent a major restoration.[1]
History
According to tradition, a monastery once stood on the site of the present stone church; its founders and exact date of establishment are unknown. The first written mention of it dates to 1606: a charter of Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky refers to a wooden Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos at this monastery. By 1621, according to the Sotnaya Charter, the monastery had been dissolved and the church had become a parish church.[1]
The stone Uspensky church was built by the merchant Olisov Afanasy Firsovich — a descendant of a Nizhny Novgorod posad family known since the 16th century. In the 1620s, among the posad people of Nizhny Novgorod, the soap-makers and small traders Stepan and Davyd Olisov were prominent; Davyd's sole heir was Firs, in whose family the sons Afanasy, Anisim, and Ivan were born in the 1630s. In 1666, Afanasy Firsovich was appointed head of the Nizhny Novgorod customs. Before departing to take up permanent residence in Astrakhan, he made a vow to build a stone Uspensky church, and in 1672 the church was completed.[1]
Architecture
The Uspensky Church is unique on a national scale: according to Professor N. F. Filatov, it is the only surviving stone church whose main volume is covered by a four-faced kreshchataya bochka (a cross-shaped barrel vault) — a technique widely used in ancient Russian wooden architecture but exceptionally rare in stone construction.[1]
Originally the building was of the "ship" type, with a strictly axial arrangement of volumes: the apse, the prayer hall, the refectory, and the bell tower above the main western entrance. The oblong prayer hall (9.5 × 7.1 m) is covered by a coved vault, concealed on the exterior by keel-shaped gables that form a kreshchataya bochka. Blind drums topped with elongated onion domes are placed on the roof ridges, and the drums themselves are also shaped as small kreshchatye bochki. For a long time the church's domes were covered with silvery aspen shingles and crowned with gilded wrought-iron crosses.[1]
Restoration and Current Condition
In 2004 the church was restored as part of the Ilyinskaya Sloboda project: a refectory and bell tower were added to the main volume, the surrounding grounds were landscaped, and a car park and a children's playground with cobblestone paths were created. In the center of the square in front of the church, a commemorative marker was erected to the inventor Ivan Kulibin: according to tradition, his parents' estate was located nearby.[1]
The solemn consecration following the restoration was performed by Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas George on July 29, 2004. Among the church's shrines are a copy of the miracle-working icon of the Mother of God "The Inexhaustible Chalice," as well as the icons "The Lord Almighty" and "Saint George the Victorious." The patronal feast is celebrated on August 28, the day of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. The rector is priest Alexiy Korekhov.[1]