Description of the attraction
The Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov is a former courtyard of the Seraphim-Diveevsky monastery. The temple belongs to the St. Petersburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Personally, Emperor Nicholas II decided to establish a courtyard of this monastery in Old Peterhof. The reason for this is the successful birth of an heir by the empress, which happened after the family of the emperor visited the monastery, where the empress fervently prayed and bathed in the Sarov spring.
When Tsarevich Alexei was born in 1904 in Peterhof according to the project of N. N. Nikonov, a small wooden chapel of five domes was erected, which was consecrated in honor of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov. In 1906 it was rededicated in honor of the "Tenderness" icon of the Mother of God. In the same year, according to the project of N. N. A stone church was laid next to Nikonov. The temple was consecrated on November 1, 1906 by the bishop of Nizhny Novgorod Nazariy (Kirillov), co-served by the clergy, including John of Kronstadt.
In 1911, the construction of the main buildings of the courtyard was completed, on the territory of which there were 13 buildings: two churches, service buildings made of wood, workshops, a two-story hotel, an orphanage for soldiers' orphans, a nursing building, a bathhouse. Workshops of drawing, icon painting, embossing and mosaics were organized at the courtyard under the guidance of the artist F. F. Bodalev. In 1906, 43 nuns lived in the courtyard, and in 1917 - about 80.
In the 1920s, a secret monastic community operated here, where the sisters, working in the world, secretly took tonsure. The community was destroyed in 1932. From 1928 to 1929, the parish of the temple supported the Josephite movement. These two churches on the territory of the courtyard were in operation until 1938. During the Great Patriotic War, the stone church was badly damaged: the bell tower was collapsed and the heads of the domes were destroyed. The wooden church was destroyed in 1941.
After the war, in 1952, the building of the stone church was transferred to Petrodvoretstorg, and trade warehouses were located here. The premises of the temple were divided into four floors with concrete ceilings, and a freight elevator was installed in the place of the altar. The outer walls of the temple building were increased with brickwork, and it acquired a cubic shape. A boiler room with a chimney was added to the northern facade.
Already today, in 1990, the building of the former church acquired the status of a cultural and historical monument and in 1993 it was returned to the Orthodox Church. On August 1, 1993, on the day of the patronal feast, the first liturgy was served here.
The building of a five-domed stone church with a hipped-roof bell tower was made in the Naryshkin (Moscow) Baroque style of the late 17th century.
The temple had three chapels: the main chapel - in honor of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov, the chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and the chapel of the holy martyr Queen Alexandra. At the moment, in the building of the church there is a temple on the first floor, and a refectory is located on the second.
On the territory of the courtyard, it is planned to open an almshouse, a hotel for pilgrims and a pilgrimage center, as well as a gold embroidery and sewing workshop. It is planned to place a refectory, a carpentry workshop and an art studio here.
