The temple on the Nerl river (Bogolyubovo, Vladimir region): description, history and photos

If you ask any Russian person called great, in his view, Orthodox churches, he certainly would be called a decoration of red square - St. Basil's Cathedral, the pride of Russia - the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and the temple on the Nerl. Why? How did you gained that love and popularly known modest and not the Central Church of the Intercession on the Nerl?

Prince Andrew

And actually, the temple on the Nerl - the most perfect in Russia, moreover, the world is not so harmonious works of religious art, and it is one of the greatest monuments of art in General. This famous Church has done and its ancient history, and only the organic connection of architecture and landscape. The temple on the Nerl is harmony itself! This monument appears to be breathing the same air inconceivably distant years, when flourished the Principality of Vladimir.

Amazing Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky really wanted to build another capital in Russia, the best Kiev beautiful than Constantinople, like Jerusalem. Seven years lined up Prince Andrew for your Vladimir, many beautiful churches had been erected. The crown of this work was Bogolyubovo, and at the head of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, 1165. Here Nerl was connected to the Klyazma river and was the gateway of many trade and river routes. The temple on the Nerl just like growing naturally on the hill, and was not built, so properly chosen the place for it.

History

The monument is fraught with many secrets, construction, and historical. In Chronicles mention the construction is very poor, they often do not contain dates, and even the names are not indicative. One write that from Kiev there has arrived Prince Andrey, built Bogolubsky castle and two churches of stone. In another slip the information that the Church on the Nerl built, and that she's intercession.

The Life of Andrei Bogolyubsky suggests that Vladimir went to the Bolgar, where after the victory had died from wounds Prince Izyaslav Andreevich. The construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl began immediately after this campaign. The timing of the erection of the Church and for our times, unprecedented. In one summer, and the temple was built, and monks when it settled. Usually even now these buildings are built over several years with all of modern technology and mechanisation.

Answer

There was No celebration in the Byzantine Empire, the Holy virgin in Russia brightened and glorified were here. The earliest icons that have survived date back to the fourteenth century. Pokrovsky churches in any of the annals of those years are not described. So Prince Andrew Bogolyubsky and we associate this beautiful holiday, considering it as an institution in Russia it is the middle of the twelfth century.

Here the major argument is the one that named the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, century after century standing in princely earth, almost at his residence. Prince Andrew, as many researchers think, wrote and celebratory texts, which came to us in the lists of later times. Description of the temple on the Nerl from Andrei Bogolyubsky includes "Prologue legend", "Service" and "Word". It may well be that the idea concerning the relationship of the Church on the Nerl with the intercession in the Russian campaign of the virgin once was associated subsequently with the worship of Blachernae miracle.

Another version

Write about another miracle that happened during the war with the Volga Bulgarians. The Russian army acted in the shadow of the cross and images of the Saviour and the Vladimir Mother of God, which suddenly began to radiate a fiery rays. The Vladimir icon of the mother of God and was devoted to the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. In General, most extant sources speak of the temple is not like intercession, but as the mother of God.

This is also evidenced by the Life of Andrei Bogolyubsky. It is very possible that originally the temple was dedicated to these two icons, and later became known as St. Basil's, although there was no special renaming. In any case, that these two saints of the image was supported by the Russian army in the campaign, is immutable. Vladimir oblast in many parts of the world mainly because it built such exceptional beauty to the temple.

Secrets of a

Even now, after so many centuries, the modern look of this Church is admired for the perfection of appearance. It only fits inthe landscape, as if this place was specifically created by nature to what happened here the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. But archaeologists dispel this misconception with their research. First, the temple used to look like several different, although this aspiring to the heavens a silhouette change was not possible. Changes over time there was an unfortunate, but, in principle, private. But the hill. He did not nature, but human hands.

The pedestal for the temple was built on a sophisticated Foundation. The beach here is low, the floodplain, and no hill nature did not provide. When flood water rose to three meters. To begin construction under these natural conditions does not, flood the temple was washed away each year. So first laid the Foundation of large cobblestones, using lime mortar. The depth of the Foundation - more than five feet, down to the continental clay layer. But one is the temple from the floods would not have saved.

Sub part

At the Foundation is the base of the walls - they used a well-cut and very tight fitting stone. The height of these walls is nearly four metres, and all are fully filled and tightly Packed with clay, inside and out. Thus, only the underground part of the temple, which is proud of Vladimir oblast, is five meters and thirty centimeters.

Now the treacherous spring of the water of steel is not afraid of the Church, standing on the pedestal of an artificial hill. Description of the monument of culture "the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl" must begin with this, and glorify the engineering mind and the architectural talents of the Russian people, which are inherent in them initially, from such ancient times. Moreover, it should be noted that the hill outside was covered with white stone slabs, like armour, which was equipped with drains in the gutter, and to the pier were beautiful staircases.

The Appearance of the temple

Of Wholeness and completeness of the temple on the Nerl without elevation due to the artificial hill to achieve would have failed. But this is only the core, the main core on which it is based is still very much awesome for the builders and architects of our time. This white stone tiers above the water on a broad hill, arcade gallery vnushitelnye belt, and the temple itself with the cylinder drum tower, and, finally, the cupola and the cross, aspiring to the sky, above it all.

Now the temple cupola with onion, and was helmet-shaped, with wood scales. And it not all changes. Once around the entire circumference of the temple was decorated open galleries for promenade height of five meters and a half, and in the South-West all this arcade game was turning into a wall of considerable thickness, which had an internal staircase with the entrance to the choir.

Proportions

The Proportions of the temple are assessed as if they were a grace and beauty, although the type of construction is quite common: single-domed, cross-dome, trehapsidnoy, with four columns, three naves - longitudinal and transverse. Still, the temple on the Nerl is clearly different from most churches of this type. The main goal of the builders was the effect of slenderness and height of unusual strength, and succeeded on many implicit at first glance reasons.

The secret is in the details that are not evident, but significantly highlight the vertical structure. The middle apse is raised slightly, the middle window just above the rest. The drum is higher than usual and narrower, with long narrow Windows. And the very raising on the pedestal of the Church, and especially reinforces this tendency in the sky. Even inside the temple, all space is organized so that air is seen as a single pillar running up.

Decorations

A smart white stone carving, inherent in the local architecture, decorates the Church. Beloved Orthodox Christians, the image of king David with real and fantastic animals, the wealth of traditional ornaments and suddenly the amazing reliefs of the girl's faces, surrounding all the temple facades. Many motifs in the external decoration has remained a mystery sculptural decoration. Now not all preserved, only nineteen portraits, but they are a whole gallery of sculptural portraits.

The white-stone carving - it is extremely time-consuming. It requires a very long time and enormous technical skill. Even just exactly to cut such a stone - more than a thousand workshops blows of a stonemason. And shaped stone and carved reliefs for the temple on the Nerl river is about four thousand man-days.

Changes

The First destruction of the temple brought princely strife after the death of Andrei Bogolyubsky. Behind them wasthe second and third, and countless a lot of damage suffered to the temple. But seriously repairing it only started towards the end of the seventeenth century: the old gallery removed, made the hipped roof. During floods the river was right up to the very walls: the ice breaking on the base of the temple. But this is not the worst. A great danger has appeared in 1784, when the monastery the Abbot has given permission to the analysis of the Pokrovsk temple just at the stone needed for the construction of the monastery. Not otherwise Vladimir Intercessor to intervene, do not agree on the price the contractor with the customer.

Ignorance is even greater beach. In 1877 the monastery without the advice of the architect made the temple repairs. Then killed the frescoes in the dome and drum, a white stone reliefs of the replaced gypsum, and the temple itself unnecessarily ties the iron tied, absolutely did not need. In 1919, all of white stone churches were received under the protection of the state. Monasteries - both were covered up to 1990. Then the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl was transferred to the newly opened Bogolyubov monastery, and then the local parish. In 1992, the Church on the Nerl was already in the list of UNESCO world heritage. And for all this wonderful building will remain one of the symbols of Russia.