The Church of the Icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands in Vorotynets is the oldest church in the settlement of Vorotynets and in the Vorotynsky District as a whole.

History

Since the founding of Vorotynets, the village has had a church dedicated to the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with two side chapels: the southern one dedicated to Alexis, the Man of God, and the northern one dedicated to the Great Martyrs Prince Michael and Boyar Feodor of Chernigov, wonderworkers.

The history of the Vorotynets church can be divided into the following stages:

  • late 16th century – 1810 – a wooden church with three altars dedicated to the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with two side chapels: the southern one dedicated to Alexis, the Man of God, and the northern one to the martyrs and confessors Michael, Prince of Chernigov, and his boyar Feodor;
  • 1810 – a great fire in Vorotynets destroys the wooden church;
  • 1812–1814 – construction of a stone church funded by the owner of the village, Count N.N. Golovin, and by donations from parishioners;
  • 1814 – consecration of the two-altar church in honor of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with a side chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas;
  • 1930 – official registration of the Vorotynets Orthodox community on the basis of an application submitted to the Administrative Department;
  • 1937 – the church is closed and used as a warehouse;
  • early 1960s – the church building is reconstructed as a house of culture;
  • April 19, 1995 – consecration of the church in honor of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with a side chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

The wooden church in the 17th – early 19th centuries

The first mention of the church in the village of Vorotynets appears in the Cadastral Book of Dmitry Lodygin of 1621–23: "... the village of Vorotynesk on a spring and on the little river Molvyazha, newly settled in the forest, and in the village a wooden church of the Nerukotvorenny Image of the Savior with a klet-style roof, and a side chapel of Alexis the Man of God and a side chapel of Prince Michael of Chernigov and his boyar Feodor, and in the church there are icons and candles and vestments and church vessels and books, and on the bell tower bells, built by the patrimonial owner, the boyar Prince Ivan Mikhaylovich." Three households in the village belonged to members of the church clergy: the priest Vasily Yuryev, the sexton Timofey, and the prosphora-baker Anastasia.

The next mention of the wooden church dates from the time of the General Land Survey in Russia, in 1808: "The village of Vorotynets, 11 versts from the district town, 260 households, population according to the fifth census of 1795: 601 men, 770 women. The property of Privy Councillor Nikolay Nikolayevich Golovin. In the village there is a wooden church dedicated to the Savior Not Made by Hands with two side chapels: the first, on the south side, dedicated to Alexis, the Man of God; the second, on the north side, dedicated to the great martyrs Prince Michael and the boyar Feodor, the wonderworkers of Chernigov..."

Why did the Vorotynets church have three altars?

The Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands was depicted on the banners of the Russian army, and the Vorotynsky princes were military commanders who repeatedly led regiments in battle.

The holy prince and martyr Michael of Chernigov was an ancestor of the Vorotynsky princes; Mikhail Ivanovich, the first owner of the lands in the Zakudemsky stan, received in 1569, was baptized in his honor.

In 1610 a son was born to Ivan Mikhaylovich Vorotynsky, baptized in honor of Alexis, the Man of God. Therefore, when building the church in Vorotynets, Ivan Mikhaylovich Vorotynsky ordered the southern side chapel to be dedicated to the heavenly patron of the young prince Alexey Ivanovich.

By the beginning of the 19th century the wooden church had fallen into disrepair. In 1804 the Nizhny Novgorod Spiritual Consistory considered the question of repairing the cladding of its domes. Permission was granted, and the church was repaired.

In 1810 a great fire broke out in Vorotynets, as a result of which the wooden Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands, the landowner's manor, the estate administration, the houses of the clergy, and most of the peasant households burned down.

The church in the 19th – 20th centuries

After this tragedy, the owner of the village, Count Nikolay Nikolayevich Golovin, and the parishioners decided to rebuild, this time as a stone church. The blessing for the new construction was obtained from the Holy Synod, to which a detailed inventory of losses had been sent from the Nizhny Novgorod Spiritual Consistory immediately after the fire, and later the so-called "account statement of expenses for the stone church under construction in the village of Vorotynets."

Construction of the new church began on the site of the old one in 1812, funded by Count Nikolay Nikolayevich Golovin and by parishioners' donations, and was completed in 1814. Only two altars were consecrated in the church: the main one, in honor of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, and a side altar dedicated to St. Nicholas.

The church belonged to "provincial classicism": a stone structure with a dome on a large drum, four small decorative domes at the corners of the main volume, a single-apse sanctuary, a refectory, and a tiered bell tower over the western entrance.

The central volume was elongated along its transverse axis and had porticoes on the north and south with Ionic columns and triangular pediments with stucco decoration. The exterior walls of the refectory and sanctuary were smooth, with only a horizontal frieze running across the center above the windows.

The slender mass of the bell tower, a pyramidal composition of tiers diminishing in height, is crowned by a small dome and a spire with a cross soaring upward.

The church's strict and restrained exterior was contrasted by its interior, adorned with magnificent stucco decoration on the coffered vaults and dome, the arches, and the cornices. The vault of the narthex and the pendentives under the dome were decorated with fresco paintings. The complex space of the church's main hall, with stucco ornament on the large dome and the half-dome of the sanctuary, was beautifully complemented by a carved wooden iconostasis.

The Church of the Savior was surrounded by an iron fence on a brick plinth with posts featuring white-stone details, and a churchyard with a cemetery dating from the 17th to the early 20th century.

Measurements of the church:

  • overall length along the west–east axis – 32 m;
  • length without the bell tower and the western porch – 22 m;
  • width of the narthex along the north–south axis – 10 m;
  • width of the prayer hall with the northern and southern porches – 20 m;
  • radius of the altar – 5 m;
  • height of the altar's half-dome – 3.5 m;
  • maximum height of the altar – 9 m;
  • diameter of the large dome – 7 m;
  • height of the dome – 5 m;
  • height of the space beneath the dome in the church hall – 14.5 m;
  • height of the bell tower with spire and cross – 25 m;
  • height of the spire on the bell tower – 6 m;
  • width of the window openings – 1.3 m;
  • height of the window openings – 2.5 m;
  • total number of windows in the church – 10;
  • columns on the porches – 18 (6 per porch);
  • height of the columns – 5.5 m;
  • height of the decorative columns inside the church – 4 m;
  • height of the arches of the prayer hall – 8 m.

After the fire, only some of the holy objects of the old church survived, and they were transferred to the new stone church. For many years it housed several donations of the Golovin family, namely: the icon of the Mother of God "Quench My Sorrows" (1793); the icon of the Smolensk Mother of God (1767); the icon of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands (1753); and the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God (1752). All of the above-named icons had silver-gilt oklads (decorative metal icon covers). Alongside the icons, two altar Gospels, dated 1748 and 1755, were also kept, likewise rescued from the burned wooden church.

In 1888, the parish of the church in honor of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands united 3,037 parishioners from the selo of Vorotynets and the village of Elvashka. The church owned 53 desyatinas of land.

In 1904, the Vorotynets parish had 1,720 men and 1,893 women on its rolls. Among the church clergy that year, the following names are known: the rector, priest Alexander Alexandrovich Ruvimov (since 1901); the second priest, Arkady Dmitrievich Novinsky (since 1902); the deacon I. V. Drozdov (since 1895); and the psalmist A. A. Smirnov. In addition, the peasant M. Ya. Plaksin (since 1895) was listed in the documents as church warden, along with retired supernumerary clergy: the priest Andrey Ivanovich Tsvetkov; the priest Dmitry Antonovich Novinsky; and the cathedral deacon M. P. Blankov.

In 1930, an application from the founders of an Orthodox community requesting its official registration was submitted to the Vorotynets Administrative Department. "Application. For the joint satisfaction of our religious needs, we, citizens numbering 1,150 persons, belonging to the Orthodox Patriarchal Church headed by the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, and at present temporarily by his deputy Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky, who is also Metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod in the Nizhny Novgorod Okrug. The ruling bishop is Bishop Alexander Pokhvalinsky. We have resolved to form the Vorotynets Orthodox Religious Society. The area of the association's activity will extend to the selo of Vorotynets, the settlement of Kazansky, and the settlement of Yurty."

In the 1930s, the following clergy were registered at the Spassky Church:

  • Vladimir Vasilievich Krasovsky (born 1884) served as priest from 1914.
  • Ivan Ivanovich Drozdov (born 1888) was transferred to the Vorotynets church in 1922 from the church in the selo of Krutets. According to an archival record, on July 30, 1937, Ivan Ivanovich Drozdov, by then a priest of the church in the selo of Isakovo in Kurmysh District, was arrested. By the sentence of a "troika" he was shot on November 4, 1937.
  • Pyotr Vasilievich Kuznetsov-Dertev (born 1899) served as deacon from September 22, 1924. On December 10, 1932, Dertev P. V. was arrested and on February 23, 1933, was sentenced by a "troika" to 5 years in the camps.
  • Pyotr Pavlovich Drozdov (born 1870) served as psalmist from 1914. On February 6, 1933, Drozdov P. P., by then a deacon, was arrested and on April 13, 1933, was sentenced by a "troika" to 3 years of exile in the Northern Territory.
  • Mikhail Vasilievich Vasin (born 1906) – psalmist of the church.

In 1937, the church in Vorotynets was closed. The building was used as a collective-farm warehouse, then as a warehouse of the district consumers' cooperative union. In the late 1950s and early 1960s its reconstruction began: the domes were removed, the bell tower and western porch were demolished, and a second floor was added. In 1967 a District House of Culture was opened there.

The church in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

In 1995, the church was once again transferred to the Orthodox Church, and on Great Wednesday of Holy Week (April 19) the church of the Image of Christ Not Made by Hands was consecrated anew.

Rectors of the revived church:

  • Priest Sergiy Telnov (1995–2005)
  • Priest Boris Matveev (2005–2006)
  • Priest Vasily Lyutyansky (2006–2007). In 2007, an Easter Liturgy with a bishop officiating and a procession of the cross was held in the Spassky Church, documented in a photo report by the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolia.[1]
  • From July 2007 – Archpriest Andrey Samsonov. In November 2025, a Sunday school for adults began operating at the church, with classes held in the reading room of the Vorotynets Central Library; at the same time, regular weekly meetings with schoolchildren were organized in the same library.[2] In the 2020s, Archpriest Andrey Samsonov took the post of assistant dean of the Vorotynets Deanery for youth work.[2] As of 2025, the church belongs to the Lyskovo Diocese and is the center of the Vorotynets Deanery; the rector of the church and dean of the district is Hieromonk Afanasy (Melnikov).[2]

See also

Sources

  1. nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Metropolia — In 2007, an Easter Liturgy with a bishop officiating and a procession of the cross was held in the Spassky Church of the selo of Vorotynets (archive)
  2. nne.ru — As of 2025, the church belongs to the Lyskovo Diocese and is the center of the Vorotynets Deanery. The rector of the church and dean of the district is Hiero (archive)