Description of the attraction
The name of the Assumption Church on Mogiltsy is by no means connected with the graves, but with the hilly terrain, which was also called "grave". Now the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is located in Bolshoy Vlasyevsky Lane, streets surround it on all four sides, therefore the site on which this temple stands is considered the smallest quarter of Moscow. The temple also has the status of an architectural monument and was even mentioned in Leo Tolstoy's novels "War and Peace" as the church where Natasha Rostova came to pray, and in "Anna Karenina" as the place where Konstantin Levin and Kitty were married. In one of his stories, Anton Chekhov also mentioned the church on Mogiltsy.
The church was built, presumably during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The first mention of it dates back to 1560 - at that time the temple was still wooden, but after a few years it was rebuilt in stone. There is also a version that the temple became stone a hundred years later - in the middle of the 17th century under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
At the end of the 18th century, a new church began to be built on the site of the former building. The author of his project was the architect Nicolas Legrand with the participation of Vasily Bazhenov. The renovation was carried out at the expense of State Councilor Vasily Tutolmin. It is this appearance of the temple that has survived to this day. By 1806, the work was completed. Despite the fact that the temple was not damaged in the fire of the Patriotic War of 1812, by the end of the 19th century it still needed restoration.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the main shrine of the temple was the icon of the Mother of God "Fadeless Color", to which many Muscovites came to bow.
With the advent of Soviet power, the life of the temple changed radically: in the 30s it was closed, the building underwent rough alterations and was adapted for offices of institutions. The building was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church only at the beginning of this century, and repair and restoration work in it was completed quite recently.
