Description of the attraction
The largest building of the Holy Bogolyubsky Monastery is the Cathedral of the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God. It was laid down on May 19, 1855. The solemn consecration ceremony took place on May 20, 1866. A significant part of the funds for the construction of the temple was donated by the Moscow merchant A. G. Alekseeva and her sons.
The building was built in the Russian-Byzantine style. The project was developed by the architect Konstantin Andreevich Ton under the guidance of the provincial architect Ya. M. Nikiforov. Ton's idea, according to some modern experts, is his successful "part-time job", where he reused his own drawings of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is from here that the scale, scope, and quality of solutions come from. In addition to the architectural merits, the cathedral was equipped with such a perfect engineering system of air heating that at present it is not possible to surpass its efficiency with modern technologies and means for a reasonable price.
The cathedral had chapels in honor of Saints Simeon the God-Receiver and Anna the Prophetess and the Apostles Peter and Paul.
The building of the Bogolyubsky temple is cross-domed, with five chapters closely adjacent to each other on faceted drums and pedestals. The central dome stands out for its height and volume. The iconostasis of the cathedral was created according to the drawings of Academician Fyodor Solntsev. Interior paintings in the academic style were made in the 1870s. In 1907-1908, the wall painting was renewed. A new carved gilded iconostasis was installed in the main altar.
In the Soviet period until the early 1980s, the cathedral was used as the State Archive of Film and Photo Documents, which was the customer of the initial design documentation for repair and restoration activities. By this time, the temple was badly dilapidated. The works were started, but with the departure of the archive they were suspended indefinitely.
In 1985, at the request of the archive for its technological needs, a version of a warm 1-storey enclosure inside the church with an area of about 800 square meters was developed. The rest of the overlying zone was supposed to be left in the same state.
After the decision was made to organize the Center for Perspective Problems of Architecture on the basis of the ensemble of buildings of the Holy Bogolyubsky Monastery, the Bogolyubsky Church was again redesigned for the needs of a new customer, with the inclusion of large basement areas in the activities.
But the redevelopment was never carried out. In the early 1990s, the monastery was transferred to the Vladimir Diocese. The restoration of the temple, which began in 1985, continues to the present day. The facades have been completed, the chapters have been repainted, and the restoration of frescoes on the huge surface of the walls and vaults is underway inside the cathedral. In terms of visual perception and quality, the frescoes of the Cathedral of the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God are in no way inferior to those of the new build in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
