Description of the attraction
The Annunciation Church is located in the historic district of St. Petersburg Novaya Derevnya. In the 1760s, on the embankment of the Bolshaya Nevka River in Staraya Derevnya, A. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin built a wooden church of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos. Then the village acquired its second name - the village of Blagoveshchenskoye.
The construction of the temple began in the late 1740s according to the project of the architect P. A. Trezzini - the son of the first city architect D. Trezzini. But in 1758 Bestuzhev-Ryumin was arrested and sent into exile, and therefore construction work was suspended. The construction was completed only after his pardon and return to St. Petersburg. The wooden church in the form of a rotunda was erected in 1762, and then its first consecration took place.
Since the temple was cold, after 3 years the construction of a warm side-chapel began, which in 1770 was consecrated in the name of the holy prince Alexander Nevsky. The iconostasis, which was previously (during construction) in St. Isaac's Cathedral, was moved here from the abolished house Church of the Annunciation of the count.
In June 1803, the church burned down during a thunderstorm from a lightning strike. The iconostasis was saved. A new church with three aisles was built in 1805-1809 by the owner of the New Village S. S. Yakovlev. The architect was V. O. Mochulsky. The architectural style is Empire. The overall composition of the building is close to the classical manor temples-rotundas of the 2nd half of the 18th century. The church also ends with a rotunda, which is decorated with a Tuscan colonnade of 12 columns, between which there were bells. The temple housed a beautiful Empire style iconostasis.
The temple was consecrated in 1809 in honor of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos. In addition to the central chapel, there was also the chapel of Alexander Nevsky and the holy martyrs Mavra and Timothy. Near the church, the new owner of the land, A. N. Avdulin in 1818 installed a roadside chapel.
In the early 1850s, restoration work was carried out in the church under the direction of the architect A. I. Krakau, and in 1900 the civil engineer V. K. Teplov added a bell tower and a sacristy, consecrated at the end of November 1901.
An orphanage and a society for the benefit of the poor functioned at the temple. Inside were the family tombs of the Orlov-Denisovs and Nikitins.
In 1937 the temple was closed. The property was transferred to the State Fund. After some time, the church was redesigned with overlapping devices. In 1947, due to the construction of Primorsky Avenue, the bell tower was destroyed. For a long time there was a factory of rubber toys and products.
2 cemeteries were attributed to the Annunciation Church: the parish one and in the church fence, which was richer and was kept by wealthy parishioners. The well-known jurist I. E. Andreevsky, writer S. N. Terpigorev, conductor and violinist N. V. Galkin and others. The cemetery was destroyed in the early 1940s, but traces of several unknown crypts could be seen in the mid-1990s.
In 1992, the temple was returned to the Orthodox Church. In 1995, a Russian-Belarusian parish was formed at the church, through whose efforts the restoration of the temple began. But the condition of the temple was very bad. In 1997, priest Ioann Malinin was appointed rector of the Annunciation Church. The first liturgy, after its closing, was served by him in September 1997 on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin. From that time on, regular services began in the temple.
By the end of 2001, the exterior of the church was completely recreated, painting was done inside the dome and 3 iconostases were installed. In 2002, Archpriest Theodore Guryak was appointed rector of the church. In early April 2003, the church was re-consecrated by Vladimir - Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga.
