Description of the attraction
This church in Pokrovskoye has two names: officially adopted and popular. Despite the fact that only one of its side-chapels was consecrated by the name of the great martyr Irina, the church soon began to be called Irininskaya, and even the street on which the temple stands was also named Irininskaya. The second side-altar was consecrated in honor of St. Catherine, and the main altar - in honor of the Life-Giving Trinity, and the church got its official name from the name of the main altar.
The first church, consecrated in the name of the great martyr Irina, was built in Pokrovskoye as a side-chapel at the Nikolsky Church in 1635. In 1763 the Nikolsky and Irininsky side-chapels burned down. The temples began to be restored, observing their previous statuses, but the parishioners of the Irininsky temple asked for the construction of a separate church. Permission was obtained, and the parishioners raised funds and built a wooden church, consecrated in 1776. A couple of decades later, a stone church with the main altar of the Life-Giving Trinity and the side-chapels of Saints Irene and Catherine was built on the site of the wooden church. This temple also appeared thanks to the funds and participation of donors. In 1890 the temple was rebuilt.
The interior of the church immediately after construction was decorated with wall paintings, which were updated over the next centuries. Presumably, part of the painting could have been done by the famous Russian painters Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov in the second half of the 19th century.
With the onset of the Soviet era, the church building lost its bell tower and domes, the frescoes were plastered, and the bells were melted down to make the bas-reliefs of the Lenin Library. The former temple housed a shooting gallery, a factory, a food base.
In the 90s, the church was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, services were resumed in it, and its restoration began. At present, a Sunday school for children and catechism courses for adults, as well as Higher Orthodox courses and a laboratory for the production of incense and incense are open at the church.
