Description of the attraction
The Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos is one of the spiritual attractions of the village of Taman. The temple was founded in 1793 by the Cossacks who came to the village. In 1794, it was solemnly consecrated.
In 1792, Catherine II signed a decree on the settlement of Taman Island by former Zaporozhye Cossacks, who landed here on August 25 of the same year under the command of Colonel Savva Bely. The Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos is the first stone building in the new land and the first Cossack Orthodox church in the Kuban. It was laid down by order of Anton Golovaty, a judge of the Black Sea Cossack army. He himself was engaged in the selection of the site for the construction of the church, and chose it in one of the most picturesque Turkish gardens.
The Church of the Intercession on Taman had a rectangular shape at the base. As conceived by the author, the building of the church is made in the form of a ship (a kind of Noah's ark) sailing to the Kingdom of Heaven. On three sides, the church is surrounded by columns and crowned with a turret in the shape of a lantern. Later, an extension on wooden pillars was built near the temple, designed to store antiquities - "memorable signs, marble, stones" found on the territory of the village of Taman and its environs so that they would not deteriorate under the influence of rain and sun, and they could not be used as a material for burning lime.
For a long time, the Holy Protection Church was the only one in the district. Services in the temple were also held during the Soviet era. During the occupation, the temple was also opened. In the post-war years, it remained active, although the number of parishioners decreased significantly. Since the early 1990s. the number of parishioners in the Holy Protection Church has increased. The building was restored. In 2001, new bells were installed on the bell tower. The largest of them weighs 350 kg.
At different times, the church was attended by: A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, A. Suvorov, St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) and many others.
