Temple on the Nerl (Bogolyubovo, Vladimir region): description, history and photos

If you ask any Russian person to name the wonderful Orthodox temples in his opinion, he will certainly name the 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 is that? How did the modest and not the central Church of the Intercession on the Nerl get such love and popular fame?

Prince Andrew

And in fact, the temple on the Nerl is the most perfect in Russia, moreover, there is no such harmonious work of temple art in the world , and this is one of the greatest monuments of art in general. The famous church was made and its ancient history, and an exceptionally organic combination of architecture and landscape. The temple on the Nerl is harmony itself! This monument, it seems, breathes with the same air of unthinkable far years, when the princedom Vladimirsky blossomed.

The amazing prince Andrei Bogolyubsky really wanted to build another capital in Russia, better than Kiev, more beautiful than Constantinople, like Jerusalem. For seven years, Prince Andrew built his Vladimir, many beautiful churches were erected. The crown of this work was Bogoliubovo, and at the head - the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl in 1165. Here, the Nerl connected with the Klyazma and served as the gateway to many commercial river routes. The temple on the Nerl seemed to have grown naturally on a hill, and was not built, so the place was chosen for him so correctly.

History of creation

The creation of this monument is associated with many secrets, both building and historical. In the annals of the mention of construction is very scarce, they most often do not contain dates and even the name does not indicate. In one they write that Prince Andrey Yurievich arrived from Kiev, built Bogolyubny Hail and two churches of stone. In another, information is shedding that the church on the Nerl is built, and that it is Pokrovskaya.

The life of Andrei Bogolyubsky suggests that the Vladimirs went to the Bulgarians, where after the victory, the prince's death, Izyaslav Andreevich, perished. The construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl began immediately after this march. Terms of work on the erection of the temple and for our time are unprecedented. In one summer, the temple was built, and the monks were settled there. Usually even now such buildings are erected within several years with all modern technology and mechanization of work.

Feast of Intercession

There was no such holiday in Byzantium, the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in Russia beamed and was glorified here. The earliest icons from the extant to our time date back to the fourteenth century. Pokrovsky temples in any of the annals of those years is not described. Therefore, with Prince Andrew Bogolyubsky and we associate this wonderful holiday, considering it an institution in Russia in the middle of the twelfth century.

Here the most important argument is that the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl is so called, a century standing by the century on the prince's land, practically at his residence. Prince Andrew himself, as many researchers think, wrote and celebratory texts of divine services, which came to us in the lists of later time. The description of the temple on the Nerl from Andrew Bogolyubsky includes "The Prosthetic Legend," "Service" and "The Word." It may very well be that the idea of the connection of the church to the Nerl with intercession in the Russian campaign of the Virgin was somehow connected with the veneration of the Vlakhern miracle.

Another version

They also write about another miracle that occurred during the war with the Volga Bulgarians. The Russian army acted under the shadow of the Cross and the images of the Savior and Vladimir's Mother of God, from which the rays of fire suddenly began to emanate. It was the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir that the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl was dedicated. In general, most of the sources that have come down to our time speak of the temple not as Pokrovsky, but as the Theotokos.

The Life of Andrei Bogolyubsky also speaks about this. It is very possible that originally the temple was dedicated to these two icons, and later became known as Pokrovsky, although there was no special renaming. In any case, the fact that these two holy images supported the Russian army in the campaign is information unchangeable. The Vladimir region in many parts of the world is known most of all because there is built such an exceptional beauty temple.

Secrets of Design

Even now, through so many centuries, the modern appearance of this church is admired by the perfection of appearance. It exclusively integrally fits into the landscape, as if this place was specially created by nature so that here the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl took place. But archaeologists dispel this delusion by their research. Firstly, the temple itself looked a bit different before, although it was impossible to change the silhouette that aspired to heaven. Changes over time have been annoying, but, in principle, private. But the hill! .. It was not made by nature, but by human hands.

This pedestal for the temple was piled on a complex foundation. The coast here is low, floodplain, and nature did not foresee any hill. During the spill, the water rose by more than three meters. To begin construction under such natural conditions can not be done, the flood would wash every year. Therefore, first laid the foundation of a large cobblestone, using a lime mortar. The depth of the foundation is more than one and a half meters, up to the continental layer of clay. But one thing this temple would not save from the flood.

Underground part

On the very foundation is the base of the walls - here they used a well-peeled and very tightly fitted stone. The height of these walls is about four meters, and they are all completely covered and densely packed with clay both outside and inside. Thus, only the underground part of the church, which the Vladimir region is proud of, is five meters and thirty centimeters.

Now the insidious spring waters are not terrible to become a church standing on the pedestal of an artificial hill. The description of the cultural monument "The Church of the Intercession on the Nerl" must necessarily begin with this and glorify the engineering mind and the architectural talents of the Russian people that are inherent in them from the very beginning, from such an ancient time. In addition, it should be noted that the whole hill outside was covered with white stone slabs, like a shell, where drains were installed in the form of gutters, and beautiful stairs led to the pier.

The shape of the temple

The integrity and completeness of the temple on the Nerl without elevation due to an artificial hill could not be reached. But this is only the core, the main core, on which there is still a lot of amazing for the builders and architects of our time. These are white stone tiers above the water on a wide hill, arcade galleries with a gracious belt, and the temple itself with the cylinder of the drum tower, and finally the glacier and the cross tending to the sky above it.

Now the temple glock - onion, but was helmeted, with wooden scales. And this is not all changes. Once upon a time around the temple's circumference there were open galleries for gulbis five and a half meters high, and in the south-west all this arcade passed into a wall of impressive thickness, in which there was an internal staircase with an entrance to the choir.

Proportions

The proportions of the temple were reconciled as if they were grace and beauty, although the type of construction is quite ordinary: one-headed, cross-domed, three-sided, four-pillared, three naves - longitudinal and transverse. And yet the temple on the Nerl is clearly different from most churches of this type. The main goal of the builders was the effect of harmony and height of extraordinary strength, and it was possible for many implicit reasons at first glance.

The whole secret is in details, which do not strike the eye, but clearly emphasize the vertical structure. Here the average apse is slightly elevated, the middle window is slightly higher than the rest. The drum is higher than usual and already, with narrow long windows. And the very elevation to the pedestal of the whole temple especially strengthens this aspiration into the sky. Even inside the temple, the whole space is organized in such a way that it is seen as a single air pillar that runs upward.

Decoration

Excellent white stone carving, inherent in the local architecture, decorates the temple. A favorite of Orthodox Christians is the image of King David with real and fantastic animals, the richness of traditional ornaments and suddenly - the amazing reliefs of the maiden faces that surround all the facades of the temple. Many of the motifs in the exterior decoration remained a mystery of the sculptural decoration. Now not all are preserved, only nineteen portraits, but they are a real gallery of sculptural portraits.

White stone carving is an extremely time-consuming task. It takes a very long time and huge technical skill. It is even easy to square this stone - more than a thousand stone strikes. And the shaped stone and carvings of reliefs for the temple on the Nerl are about four thousand man-days.

Changes

The first destruction of the temple brought princely feuds after the death of Andrei Bogolyubsky. Behind them were the second and third, and countless damages suffered the temple. But seriously to repair it began only towards the end of the seventeenth century: the dilapidated galleries were removed, a four-pitched roof was made. During the floods, the river approached the very walls: the ice floes broke about the basement of the temple. But this is not the worst thing. A great danger appeared in 1784, when the monastic abbot received permission to analyze the Intercession Cathedral just for the stone that was needed for construction in the monastery. Not otherwise, Vladimirskaya Intercession intervened: the contractor with the customer did not agree on the price.

Ignorance is an even greater scourge. In 1877, the monastery without a council with the architect made the temple repair. Then the frescoes died in the dome and the drum, many white-stone reliefs were replaced with plaster ones, and the church itself was tied with iron ties, completely unnecessary for him. In 1919, all the white stone churches came under the protection of the state. Monasteries - both - were covered until 1990. Then the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl was transferred to the newly opened Bogolyubov Monastery, and then to the local parish. In 1992, the church on the Nerl was already on the UNESCO World Heritage List. And forever this wonderful building will remain one of the symbols of Russia.