Churches and temples of Kozeletsky district

Danevsky St. George Convent

The monastery is located on the right bank of the Oster river between Kozelets and Danivka on a small hill. Due to the exquisite silhouette of the cathedral with three baroque domes, the monastery complex dominates the panoramas of the Oster river valley for many kilometers.

Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin and the bell tower

The stone cathedral with a bell tower is located in the historical center of Kozelets, on the main street near the central square. Both buildings are the main urban planning dominants prevailing in the building and the surrounding landscape. Now the immediate surroundings of these monuments is the city park, in which the house of the regimental office is located. Nearby is the Nicholas Church.

The five-domed cathedral was built in 1752 - 1763. according to the project and under the supervision of the architect A. Kvasov with the participation of the Kiev architect I. Grigorovich-Barsky, who decorated the facades and interiors, by order of Countess Natalya Demyanovna Razumovskaya, mother of brothers Alexei and Kirill Razumovsky. The construction was carried out at the expense of the Razumovsky family under the control of Hetman K. Rozumovsky. The bell tower was built in 1766-1770. designed by A. Kvasov by architect S. Karin, also funded by the Razumovskys.

The cathedral has undergone some changes and restructuring: at the end of the XVIII century. open verandas in front of three portals were built on and turned into arcade rotundas, covered with plastic-shaped tent roofs. In the XIX century. the forms of baths have been changed. The two-tiered Baroque wedding bell tower after the fire of 1848 was replaced by a spherical dome with a spire.

The interior is dominated by a large (over the entire width of the cathedral) four-tier iconostasis in the Rococo style, designed by the architect V. Rastrelli. All details are carved from linden wood, the main background was dark blue, with a gilded carved ornament. The icons were made by local craftsmen under the guidance of the famous artist, court painter K. Razumovsky G. Stetsenko (1710-1781).

The bell tower stands separately from the cathedral within its enclosure, which used to be a gateway. It has four levels, with a deep basement. It has a total height of 50 m up to the cross. It is done in the Baroque style. The plan is a square with concave edges and cut corners. The architecture is ordered: the lower floor is decorated with rustic wood, the upper ones are decorated with corner beams of columns along the arched openings of the bell: the Tuscan order - on the second tier, Ionic - on the third, Corinthian - on the fourth.

The Kozeletskaya bell tower belongs to a small typological group of the so-called large bell towers of the Left Bank, which were erected in the 1770s. and combine two main types of bell towers known in the 18th century. in Ukraine - order (type of the Great Lavra Bell Tower in Kiev) and tiered Chetveriks. Prior to this rare type, in addition to the bell tower of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in Kozelts, there are also bell towers of the Chernigov Trinity and Pereyaslavsky Ascension monasteries.

Both structures were destroyed during the Second World War. The cathedral was restored in 1946 and during 1961-1982, the Bell tower - in 1961-1970. The restoration of the cathedral iconostasis was carried out during the 1980-1990s. Some of the icons have been lost. Now the cathedral and the bell tower are monuments of architecture of national importance.

Built in 1866-1874. Built of brick, five-domed, four side domes are decorative, cross in plan, with risalits on the southern and northern facades and two apses along the east-west axis. Smooth plastered walls are crowned with a profiled cornice. Vertical elongated window and door openings with semicircular lintels are framed by flat platbands. The interior has a pronounced cross-domed spatial solution. The central dome with eight light openings in an octagonal drum is crowned with a decorative dome. The inner corners of the octagon drum are rounded in the interior.

The drum of the central head rests on supporting arches and is covered with a dome. On the sails there is painting on metal sheets, in the walls of the drum there is also oil painting.

The vaults above all parts of the monument are brick, above the eastern and western branches - semicircular - combined with a closed vault, above the northern and southern - semicircular, above the corner chambers - closed vaults, the heads of the chambers - square in plan with cut corners - are perceived as the upper tier of corner towers ...

The restoration work, started in 1975, provides for the complete restoration of the monument in its original forms. The restoration is being completed.

The monument is a rare example of an original interpretation of the traditional for the Left Bank of Ukraine in the 17th – 18th centuries. cross five-domed church during the period of "historicism".

Currently, the church houses the Museum of the history of weaving of Chernihiv region.

A stone baptized single-dome church stands in the historical center of Kozelets on the banks of the Oster river not far from the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin. The location of the temple fixes the southern border of the Kozeletskaya fortress of the 17th-18th centuries. Due to its location above the floodplain and a high tiered top, the temple is an important urban planning dominant.

Built in 1781-1784 instead of a wooden church, commissioned and funded by the priest Kirill Tarakh-Tarlovsky, nicknamed Wild Pop, who, according to legend, married the Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna to Alexei Razumovsky in Kozelts.

Despite the renovations, in particular in 1811, the monument has well preserved its original architectural forms in the style of the late Baroque, with the exception of the bathhouse, the completion of which in 1811 was replaced by a spherical dome. During 1981 - 1989. restoration work was carried out, during which the lost completion of the bath was restored.

In the interior, the unity of the interior space is achieved with the help of high arches that unite all spatial sections and subordinate them to a high, generously illuminated dome. The western and eastern bases are covered with cylindrical vaults, the southern and northern ones are incompletely closed, the diaconicum and the altar are covered with complex conch vaults, turning into cylindrical ones, the apse and contrapsid are conchs.

Nicholas Church in Kozelets is a typologically unique, highly artistic monument of the final stage of development of the Baroque style in Ukrainian architecture.

St. George's Goddess (St. Michael's Church) - a monument of ancient Russian architecture of the XI century. Located at the entrance to the city from the south on a high hill. "Yuryeva" it was named after his beautifier Yuri Dolgoruky, it was he who decorated his court church with frescoes similar to those of St. Sophia of Kiev.

The temple was built as a church of a princely castle by decree of Vladimir Monomakh in 1098, and in the XII century, at the request of Yuri Dolgoruky, it was decorated with fresco painting. The church got its name "St. George's Goddess" after the name of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, who once belonged to Oster.

Osterskaya St. Michael's Church in the course of history has been repeatedly destroyed. First, in 1152, she suffered at the hands of Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich, who burned the city. It was restored by the son of Yuri Dolgoruky, Vsevolod Yuryevich in 1195. The next time St. George's goddess was destroyed during the raid of the Tatar-Mongols in 1240.

The service in the church was not carried out until the 17th century. In 1695, the church was restored again and even an additional altar in the name of the Holy Trinity was built in the choir. In 1753, during a thunderstorm, the temple was struck by lightning, as a result of which the wooden top burned down, moreover, the masonry began to collapse as a result of the shift of the hill towards the river. At the end of the XVIII-beginning of the XIX century. most of the volume of the building was dismantled due to the emergency condition, only the altar part (apse and part of the southeastern wall) was preserved.

Restoration work according to the project of the architect P. P. Pokryshkin was carried out only in 1907 according to the project of the architect P. P. Pokryshkin. In 1924 and 1950, conservation work was carried out. In 1977-80, they initiated the conservation of the remains and the restoration of the 12th century fresco painting, the remains of which have been preserved in the interior of the apse. (Artist V.I.Babyuk). A copy of the fresco "Eucharist" is kept in the Sofia Reserve

Oster

The news of the laying of the wooden Resurrection Church dates back to 1790. The stone church was built in 1845 at the expense of the merchant brothers Ilya and Pavel Tsilyurikov. The church even has two additional altars: Elijah, and Peter and Paul. One of the founders of the temple was buried at the walls of the Resurrection Church.

The basis of the temple is the one-bath type of late classicism-style cruciform construction, which was widespread at that time. It is characterized by an elongated hall and an attached bell tower. A large hemispherical dome rests on a high drum; the temple is decorated with four-column porticoes on the south and north sides of the building. The three-tiered bell tower was built a little later than the temple and has pronounced baroque features.

The iconostasis was built by merchants in 1857. At the end of the 80s of the last century, research was carried out in the temple, during which dozens of icons were discovered here, which are considered monuments of art. Among them is the image of St. Barbara (authors Vasily Levchenko and his wife Anastasia), St. Nicholas, Archangel Michael, as well as icons in the iconostasis.

oster

The stone one-domed church of the tetraconchous type stands in a flat area on a low hill in the center of the village and is its main architectural dominant. It can be clearly seen from the Kiev-Chernigov highway.

Built by the order and at the expense of Count Alexei Razumovsky over the grave of his father, the Cossack Grigory Rozum, designed by the architect A. Kvasov. Construction began in 1755, the temple was consecrated in 1760. In 1865, according to the project of the Chernigov architect A. Kutsevich, the western vestibule with a bell tower was added, while the western conch was dismantled. In 1760, a four-tiered Rococo iconostasis was installed in the church. It contained icons made by the artist A. Voskoboinikov (the iconostasis has not survived). In 1913 - 1914. At the invitation of a descendant of the founder, Prince A. Rozumovsky, outstanding Ukrainian artists Mikhail Boychuk, his wife Sofia Nalepinskaya-Boychuk and Timofey Boychuk's brother worked on the restoration of the iconostasis and painting in the interior. The restoration was not completed due to the outbreak of the First World War. In 1974-1982. the monument was restored (architects I. Ivanenko, N. Selivanova, V. Tregubov).

The Church of the Three Saints in Lemesh is the very first and most prominent representative of the tetraconchial temples in Ukraine. Stylistically, it marks the transition from baroque to classicism.

village Lemeshi.

Built in 1782-1796 The monument has been preserved in its original volume. The church is made in the forms of mature classicism, made of brick, cruciform in plan, with a rounded altar part and corner chambers in height equal to the main volume, due to which it appears cubic in the external outline with small projections in the center of each facade, corresponding to the branches of the cross plan. Each risalit is finished with a monumental, complicated form of a portico with a pediment on four low paired Doric columns supporting an arch with a triangular pediment ending the wall. A wide staircase leads to the western portal. The structure is single-domed, completed with a dome on a cylindrical drum, the corner rooms - with decorative domes made of metal. In the north and south corner chambers there are wooden staircases leading to the choir.

The walls are rusticated (corner volumes), decorated with niches of various configurations, window openings are framed with smooth platbands with locks. Metal bars have been preserved in the windows.

The leading role in the interior is assigned to the well-lit dome space. The spring arches, supported by four pylons and sails, carry a light drum covered with a domed vault. The drum ring has an oil painting similar in character to the illusory painting common at the turn of the 19th century.

The monument is of interest as an excellent example of the classicism architecture of the late 18th century, professionally designed in good proportions and harmonious combination of elements.

from. Petrovskoe

The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the urban-type village of Kozelets (1752) is an amazingly beautiful Baroque temple with fantastic energy, one of my favorites. I want to return to this church again and again - it seems to be permeated with the breath of the Holy Spirit.

It is believed that the Nativity Cathedral is the final chord of the Ukrainian Baroque era, the last church of this style in the history of Ukraine. The temple has the status of an architectural monument of national importance.

The church belongs to the Kozeletsk Deanery of the Chernigov Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The rector of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin is the Dean of the Kozeletsky District, Mitred Archpriest Mikhail Tereshchenko, who made a lot of efforts to return the church to believers.

A lot has been written about the cathedral and its creators on the Internet, and far from everything is correct. It seems to me that the best way for the first acquaintance is this: the church has its own website - http://sobor-kozelets.church.ua. This is a rather rare case in principle, not to mention the fact that the church is not in the capital. Many thanks to its creators. In addition, the book "The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in Kozelts" from a series of publications about architectural monuments of national importance, written by the staff of the "Chernigov Ancient" reserve, was written about the temple, and there are references in a huge number of other sources. So for those who like detailed reconstruction of historical events, this topic is just a klondike.

Story

The construction of the cathedral is associated with one of the most famous Ukrainian dynasties - the Razumovsky.

The history of this family is amazing - such a career as the Razumovsky brothers made (not for nothing the family name of the family - Rózuma) - can rightfully be called dizzying.

Judge for yourself. Alexey and Kirill Razumovsky (the future count and field marshal general and the last hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army and the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences) came from a family of land-poor Cossacks who lived in the village of Lemeshi - it is very close to Kozelets. The older brother, Aleksey, is a handsome and handsome guy, who fled from his drinking father to another neighboring village - Chemer, settled with a clerk and became a choir singer. The wooden church in which he sang was destroyed long ago. In its place, in 1888, another wooden church was built - now, unfortunately, it has also almost collapsed and, I think, it will not be possible to restore it.

In 1731, during a service, Colonel Fyodor Stepanovich Vishnevsky, a courtier of Empress Anna Ioannovna, who was passing by, entered the church in Chemer. Fedor Stepanovich was not only a supplier of Tokay wines to the imperial court, but also "stately and brown-eyed singers" for the imperial choir. He was struck by Alexei's bright voice and invited him to go to Petersburg. Then the story developed as in a fairy tale. Alexei finds himself in the court choir chapel, where he is noticed and approached by the crown princess Elizaveta Petrovna, who is in semi-disgrace with the then Empress Anna Ioannovna and needs moral support after the exile to Kamchatka of her previous favorite and orderly Alexei Shubin.

When Elizaveta Petrovna becomes empress, her - at that time already a favorite - Alexei Razumovsky receives tremendous power: the empress bestows upon her "night emperor" the title of count and the rank of field marshal, he becomes one of the richest people in the empire. There is even a legend that Elizabeth was in a secret marriage with Razumovsky, although there is no documentary confirmation of this fact, as well as stories about their joint children (the most famous of them is Princess Tarakanova). In addition, some researchers mention that Empress Elizabeth and Count Alexei were crowned by the "wild priest" Kirill Nikolaevich Tarlovsky, a native of Kozelets, who, according to them, was also in some way involved in the construction of the Kozelets Cathedral.

Alexei transports his brother Kirill to the capital and sends him to study in Europe. 16-year-old Kirill returns from there already a count, at the age of 18 he is appointed president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, he marries the empress's second cousin and receives a huge dowry for her, becomes the last hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army (the abolished title was specially restored for such an occasion), and later - Senator and Adjutant General.

For some time, their mother, Natalya, an ordinary Chernigov villager, granted by the empress to the state lady, also lived at the court. But when the imperial court moved to Petersburg, she returned to her homeland - she did not like court life - and settled near Kozelts in the Alekseevshchina estate that she built.

Most historians believe that the idea of \u200b\u200bbuilding a cathedral in Kozelets belongs to her, Natalia Razumovskaya (“Rozumikha” in the common Ukrainian interpretation), and was supported by her sons, with whose money it was built. The Chernigov region generally owes the Razumovsky brothers, and especially its last hetman, a large number of luxurious baroque churches and palaces, but it was this church that Natalya Demyanovna conceived in gratitude to the Lord for the triumphant elevation of her family.

The construction of the temple began in 1752 and lasted 11 years. According to the stories of Alexander Andreevich Sham, a local historian and teacher of Kozelets, for the construction of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Theotokos, an inclined access earth embankment was built from the village of Likholetki to the village of Glamazdy, 10 kilometers long, in order to supply building materials to a great height. About a hundred peasants from the Razumovsky estates brought the necessary materials on carts, and almost 150 people worked on the construction itself. The peasants were paid 5 kopecks a day, the Razumovsky brothers did not skimp, and Natalya Demyanovna herself, they say, personally supervised the construction.

It’s a pity that she didn’t have a chance to see her dream come true: she died before the construction was completed. She found her final resting place here, in the lower church, in the chapel of the holy martyrs Adrian and Natalia. Until now, the clergy of the cathedral conducts services for the repose of her soul.

In 1766-1770, a bell tower was built next to the cathedral.

In the reference book "Monuments of Urban Planning and Architecture of the Ukrainian SSR" there is a mention of a "fire caused by lightning" in 1848, as a result of which the two-tiered bell tower was replaced with a dome with a spire, and the upper, fifth, tier was not restored in its original form.

According to the abbot of the temple, father Mikhail Tereshchenko, in 1934 the Soviet authorities closed the temple and confiscated everything that they considered valuable. During the occupation of Kozelets by the German fascist troops in 1941, there was a stable on the territory of the cathedral, and then a prisoner of war camp. It is strange that he did not act - usually the Germans during the occupation allowed the resumption of services. During the bombing, the domes of the cathedral and the bell tower were damaged. When the war ended, a vegetable warehouse was set up in the temple. In 1946, the primary restoration work began in the cathedral. The real restoration was carried out in the 1960-1970s by specialists from the Chernigov interregional specialized scientific experimental workshop.

After the completion of the restoration, the church was transferred to the church and opened for services on August 14, 1993, in the presence of His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of Chernigov.

In September 2012, a descendant of Kirill Razumovsky, Count Alexander Razumovsky, came to celebrate the 260th anniversary of the founding of the cathedral. He presented the cathedral with the icon "Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos".

Architecture

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in the Baroque style, with elements of Rococo and Classicism. For a long time, the authorship of the project of the temple was attributed to Bartolomeo Rastrelli, but later documentary evidence was found that the architect of the cathedral was Andrey Vasilyevich Kvasov, the founder of the first Ukrainian "Glukhiv" architectural school, a student of the famous St. Petersburg architect Mikhail Grigorievich Zemtsov. Also, researchers believe that the famous Ukrainian architect Ivan Grigorievich Grigorovich-Barsky participated in the creation of the church and that he is the author of the elegant stucco decoration of the temple.

The temple has a two-tiered structure, rare for Ukraine, with a basement and consists of a “summer” (upper) and “winter” or “warm” (lower) church, which is also the tomb of Natalia Razumovskaya.

The cathedral is brick, plastered, four-nave, nine-part, four-pillar, built in the shape of an equilateral cross. The porches - the same height as the main volume - make it almost square in plan. The main altar of the church is consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the right side altar - in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul, the left - the prophet Zechariah and Saint Elizabeth, the lower - the holy martyrs Adrian and Natalia. The temple is five-domed, the domes have a two-tiered end, typical for the Ukrainian Baroque. On three sides of the temple are attached porches with a hipped roof.

Outside and inside, the cathedral is decorated with elegant molding in the Elizabethan Rococo style.

Another of the amazing treasures of the temple is the grandiose carved wooden iconostasis made of linden and covered with gilding. The central part of the iconostasis is five-tiered, the side ones are three-tiered, its height is 27 meters. The carving is masterful and inspired at the same time, very harmoniously combined with the baroque design of the temple. Before the revolution, the iconostasis had a gilded silver gate - alas, confiscated along with all the valuables. Of the 72 icons, 50 have survived; the icons were painted by Ukrainian icon painters headed by the court artist of the Razumovsky family - Grigory Andreevich Stetsenko. As an iconostasis, he survived the revolution, the war and the post-war period - a complete mystery, not otherwise - the providence of God.

The bell tower, standing separately from the cathedral and also built by Andrey Kvasov, has a height of 50 meters - it is one of the highest in Ukraine. Now the bell tower is four-tiered, and before the fire of 1848 it was apparently five-tiered. The first tier is decorated with rustic stone, the columns of the second tier are of the Tuscan order, the third is Ionic, the fourth is Corinthian and - (captain's evidence) - the columns of the fifth were most likely Doric? The dome of the bell tower is hemispherical with a spire, the original one, as I already wrote, was destroyed by fire.

Interesting Facts

There are many interesting legends and stories associated with the Nativity Cathedral, but I would like to dwell on a few of them.

One of them concerns the iconostasis and two versions of its origin. The first of them says that it was made in the workshop and according to sketches by Bartolomeo Rastrelli (according to other retellings - in Italy) and that Elizabeth ordered it for the Smolny monastery in St. Petersburg, but then decided to present it to the Kozeletsky temple. According to the second version, set forth in the book by Vladimir Virotsky, Andrey Karnabida and Viktor Kirkevich "Monasteries and Temples of the Severskaya Land" - documentary evidence was found that the iconostasis was made in Kozelts.

The next story is about the locally revered miraculous icon - the Athos copy from the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, which is also called the “Goalkeeper” (in Greek “Portaitissa”), which is now in the lower church. I heard somewhere that the first copy, which was kept in the cathedral and was lost after 1934, was brought from Athos specially for Natalia Razumovskaya. The current copy of the miraculous icon, with the blessing of the Mother of God, was brought from the holy Mount Athos by the rector of the cathedral, Father Mikhail Tereshchenko, in 2003. But the original prayer to that, the first icon, which is offered only in Kozelts, has survived to this day. Celebration in honor of the Iberian Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos in Kozelts - Bright Tuesday.

Interestingly, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin was described by Taras Shevchenko in the story "Princess" - he went to Kozelets twice, the first time - in the spring of 1846 on behalf of the Archaeographic Commission to draw sketches of architectural and historical monuments of Chernigov region. Here is what he writes: "The city of Kozelets ... a town that is unremarkable, but still passing through, if he does not sleep when the horses are changed, or does not eat at Pan Tikhonovich's, he will certainly admire the stately temple of graceful Rastrelli architecture, which Natalka built Rosumikha ". So during Shevchenko's time, there was a hypothesis that the cathedral was built by Rastrelli - the earth is full of rumors.

And also Empress Elizaveta Petrovna visited Kozelts and stayed for some time. In 1744, during a trip to Little Russia, Elizabeth also visited Kozelets, where, according to the famous prose writer Nikolai Heinse, “she stayed for a long time with the mother of Alexei Grigorievich [Razumovsky] - Natalya Demyanovna and ... in her Kozeletsky house ... the chair on which the empress sat was kept. "

Location and surroundings

The urban-type settlement Kozelets is the regional center of the Kozeletsky district of the Chernihiv region, located on the banks of the Oster river, 76 kilometers from Kiev, next to the E95 highway. I love this small town very much - calm and solid. And also in Kozeltz they hold (well, at least they used to do) cheerful and colorful autumn fairs, where many districts of Chernihiv region were exhibited.

The town owes its name not to the beautiful yellow spring flowers from the Aster family, which bear the name goat and a little like a dandelion, or to the neighboring "goat" - a forest in which wild goats used to be in great abundance (the city's coat of arms is a silver goat with golden power on the back).

For the first time the city was mentioned in documents of the early 17th century as a Polish fortress. During the liberation war of Bohdan Khmelnitsky against Poland, the Cossack squadron of the Kiev regiment stood in Kozelets. After the inclusion of Chernihiv in Russia, the management of the Kiev regiment was transferred to Kozelets - a colonel and a Cossack foreman moved to the city, it became an important military and administrative center.

Many interesting architectural monuments have survived in Kozelets. First and second, there are two old churches in Kozelts - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (1781-1784), which is in operation, and the Church of the Ascension of the Lord (1866-1874) - it houses the Museum of the History of Weaving of Chernigov Region, but they deserve a separate discussion. on other blogs.

Thirdly - the House of the Regimental Chancellery, after the abolition of the centennial regimental structure in Ukraine in 1781 by Catherine II, served as a magistrate - was built in the 1756-1760s by the same architects who built the Nativity Cathedral - Andrey Kvasov and Ivan Grigorovich-Barsky according to ordered by the Kiev colonel Efim Daragan. During the Second World War, the building was damaged and later restored.

Another place worth visiting - if there is still anything left to see at all - is the estate and park of the Daragan family (1750s - 1760s) in the former village of Pokorshchina, which is now part of Kozelets. In 1744, Natalya Razumovskaya bought this estate from the regimental clerk Ivan Pokorsky and presented it as a dowry to her daughter Vera Grigorievna, who married a wealthy landowner and Kiev colonel Efim Daragan. The manor is interesting in that it is wooden, plastered, and from a distance it looks like a stone manor, almost the only wooden baroque manor that has survived in Ukraine. It was decorated with very beautiful carvings.

The estate was surrounded by a landscape park; from the outbuildings, a kamenitsa (the colonel's armory, 1750-1770) and a carriage shed were preserved. All buildings are in a terrible state. The entrance to the manor house is boarded up, the windows shattered. I suspect that inside it is in disrepair. Back in 1975, scenes from the famous film "The Star of Captivating Happiness" were filmed in the estate, and now the national architectural monument is being pulled away by homeless people.

To be continued

My next story is dedicated to the not very famous, but beautiful Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Kovshevataya, Tarashchansky district.

Cathedral in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kozeltse Chernihiv diocese

The cathedral was built by the order of Natalia Demyanovna Razumovskaya (Razumikha - the mother of Alexei and Kirill Razumovsky) by architects A. V. Kvasov and I. G. Grigorovich-Barsky according to the project of V. V. Rastrelli between and years. Also in the 18th century, a multi-tiered gilded iconostasis was created - it is believed, with the participation of the architect V.V. Rastrelli. Razumovskaya's court painter, Grigory Stetsenko, painted the cathedral. On the first tier, the temple of the Martyrs Adrian and Natalia was built - the burial place of the Razumovsky. After the completion of the construction of the cathedral, a grandiose bell tower was erected by the architect Kvasov. In terms of the splendor and beauty of its architecture, the cathedral ranked among the best architectural creations in the Russian Empire in the middle of the 18th century. It was also the last prominent temple building in the history of the Ukrainian baroque, after which the time of classicism came.

After a fire caused by lightning, the bell tower was rebuilt in the year.

Architecture

A grandiose stone temple of lush, palace architecture. The architecture of the building is dominated by baroque features, sometimes passing into rococo forms, and order motifs of classicism. In the plan, the building represents a cross. The massif of the building is divided into two main floors and a basement. The windows are arranged strictly in a row on floors. On the ground floor there are unusual porches in the form of pavilions with an arched roof. Here you can see the rustication of the first floor, and as a contrast to this, the complex and abundant decoration of the second floor, crowned at the top with curved pediments. Four supporting pillars carry a system of vaults and five domes set diagonally, as in ancient Russian churches. On three sides, semicircular porches with an open colonnade, ending in low tents, are attached to the main volume.

The interior is dominated by a central dome and a grandiose multi-tiered gilded iconostasis carved from linden. Here architecture, sculpture and painting appear in indissoluble unity, which can be seen in the refined decoration of the walls, supports, vaults and domes, as well as in the iconostasis.

Next to the cathedral is a four-tier bell tower 50 m high (one of the highest in Ukraine). The compositional solution of the building is traditionally tiered: the lower tier is decorated with rustication, on the second tier there are beams of columns

"The city of Kozelets in its appearance does not differ at all from its other brothers - uyezd Ukrainian cities ... In a word, the town is unremarkable, but still passing through, if it does not sleep when the horses are changed, or does not have a bite from Pan Tikhonovich, then will certainly admire the majestic temple of graceful Rastrelli architecture, which was built by Natalka Rozumikha "

T.G. Shevchenko

I have already told the history of this temple. With a break of several years, I again visited here, brought my mother on an excursion, and we once again enjoyed seeing the masterpiece. With the weather we were not particularly lucky, we did not manage to photograph the temple against the blue sky, look how it happened.

Let me remind you of the history of the temple. The family of a poor Cossack Grigory Rozum and his wife Natalka Demeshko lived not far from Kozelets in the village of Lemeshi. They already had 6 children: Alexey, Cyril, Daniel, Agafya, Anna and Vera. Poor they were children of other people's cattle grazing. Thanks to Alexei and Cyril, the Razumovsky surname soon became famous throughout the empire.

And all because, by the will of fate, handsome Alexei, at 22, became a chorister in the court choir in St. Petersburg and caught the eye of Tsarevna Elizaveta Alekseevna. The story of their love is known to everyone, while in the Chernihiv region in the small village of Kozelets there is a wonderful monument of this love, not many people know.

It is believed that the temple was built by Natalka Rozumikha, but this is not entirely accurate - she may have been the main initiator of the construction and supervised the construction, however, most likely, her sons themselves - Alexei and Kirill, who at that time became active "accomplices" by the will of the royal patroness of the richest people in Russia. Strictly speaking, the main share in the construction of the cathedral belonged to the energetic and educated brother of the favorite, Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky.

Decor details (I.G. Grigorovich-Barsky)

The authorship attributed to Rastrelli for many years was later disputed - there are too many elements in the construction inherent in the Ukrainian baroque, with which Rastrelli was hardly familiar. Now it is believed that the project belonged to two architects - Andrei Vasilievich Kvasov and Ivan Grigorievich Grigorovich-Barsky. The cathedral was built for 11 years - 1752-1763. Elements of different styles are guessed in the forms of the amazingly beautiful cathedral, but they are all combined unusually harmoniously. The elegant carved decor belongs to Grigorovich-Barsky.

The temple is two-storied - it has an upper (main) tier and a lower temple-tomb. Here in 1762, Natalya Demyanovna was buried, who did not live to see the end of construction.

More than once I was convinced that the cathedral is surprisingly non-photogenic - the photographs fail to recreate its charm and harmony. How many images I have not seen - none fully captures the charm of the original. Only the interior of the cathedral itself is more beautiful than it. I remember my first impression when I entered the cathedral for the first time three years ago and saw the iconostasis: "Ah !!" - and froze. My mother reacted the same way.

They say that the carved iconostasis, most likely made in Rastrelli's workshop, Empress Elizabeth originally planned to place in the Smolny Monastery, but then changed her mind and presented it to Razumovsky for their family church. By the way, Elizaveta once visited Kozeltz - during her journey in 1744 from St. Petersburg to Kiev, she visited the homeland of her beloved and met his family.

The iconostasis is so huge that its lateral parts did not fit in the church, they had to be removed and transferred to the church in neighboring Lemeshi (more about it later), where they have not survived. The massive silver gates, which have been irretrievably lost today, were a striking decoration of the iconostasis. The icons installed in the iconostasis (there should be 72 of them) were partially lost, partially transferred to the Chernigov Art Museum. A number of them are under restoration. It is assumed that some of the icons were painted by the favorite artist of the Razumovsky G.A. Stetsenko.

They say that now it is the highest iconostasis in an Orthodox church in the CIS - 27 meters. It has 5 rows, but I did not see a clear division into canonical ranks - the baroque presupposes some liberties in following the canons. The rest of the temple was deliberately not painted, so as not to distract from the iconostasis and not "ripple". From the inside, the cathedral is decorated only with white stone carvings, echoing the external decor.

Interior decor elements

I was not able to take quite a lot of photos of the interior, although I had planned it - the servant asked us to leave the temple - she closed the cathedral. I think it was not her whim: the sightseers who arrived by bus finished their inspection and hurried to the book and icon shop, and the servant is also a saleswoman in the shop. If you visit the cathedral, visit the shop too - there are good guides here.

A bell tower was erected near the temple in 1766-1770. Initially, it had 5 tiers, but in 1848 the upper tier burned down, and they did not begin to restore it. Now the height of the bell tower is 50 meters.

Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - Orthodox Cathedral in Kozelts Chernihiv region, a prominent architectural monument in a style that combines signs of the Ukrainian and Elizabethan baroque. Built in 1752-1763 by order of Natalya Demyanovna Razumovskaya ("Razumikha"), the mother of Alexei and Kirill Razumovsky. The architects of the temple were Andrey Kvasov and Ivan Grigorovich-Barsky.

Stone cross cathedral it has four supporting pillars inside, which carry a system of vaults and five domes, set diagonally as in ancient Russian temples. The first tier of the two-story church houses the Razumovsky tomb. Semicircular porches with an open colonnade, completed with hipped tops, lead to the second tier from three sides. The sophisticated stucco decoration of the walls combines the forms of baroque, rococo and classicism. The interior is dominated by the central dome and the multi-tiered linden-carved gilded iconostasis of the 18th century, created, according to local legend, with the participation of the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. There is a four-tiered bell tower next to the temple.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Germans organized prisoner of war campand a stable. Restored in 1961-1982.

The main temple of Kozelts is conventionally divided into two parts - the upper and lower churches, each of which has an equivalent holiness.

The upper part of the cathedral is the central one, named after the Nativity of the Mother of God. The central chapel of this church also bears the name of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

In the limit of the holy apostles, on the right side of the Royal Doors, there is an icon of the holy apostles Peter and Paul. This image was painted and presented to the cathedral by local artist Yuri Grigorievich Prilipko.

The left side-altar of the cathedral is named after the prophet Zechariah and the righteous Elizabeth, the parents of St. John the Baptist. A righteous marriage lived by God's will. It suffered from sterility, which in those days was considered a great punishment of God.

Now in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, four thrones have been resurrected and consecrated, on which the service of God is performed: the central one, in honor of the Nativity of the Mother of God; right - in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul; the left one - in the name of the saints the prophet Zechariah and the righteous Elizabeth; in the lower church - in honor of the holy martyrs Adrian and Natalia.

Until 1934, the cathedral housed the miraculous Iveron Icon. Until now, a prayer has been preserved that is read only in Kozelts. And when the cathedral was closed and robbed, icons disappeared from it, including the Iberian miraculous icon.

In 2003, the Mother of God blessed the archpriest, the dean of the Kozeletsky district, to go to the holy Mount Athos. In the Iversky Monastery, where the original of the Iverskoy Icon is located, Archpriest Mikhail Tereshchenko acquired the image, attached it with tears to the miraculous and brought it to Kozeletskaya land.