Description of the attraction
Princess Olga is one of the few women in Orthodoxy who, after death, were recognized as Equal to the Apostles. There are five such women in total, and among them, for example, Mary Magdalene. Princess Olga lived at the end of the 9th - 10th centuries and was the wife of Prince Igor. After the death of Prince Igor in 945, she began to rule Kievan Rus, and in 957, she was the first of the rulers of Rus to adopt Christianity, although her subjects and even her son Svyatoslav continued to profess paganism. Princess Olga was numbered among the saint Equal-to-the-Apostles in the middle of the 16th century.
In Moscow, several churches are named after her, including two in Ostankino and Solntsevo, as well as a chapel-church behind the Serpukhov Gate. The latter was built at the end of the last century: the building itself was erected by 1995, but the church was not opened immediately due to the unfinished interior decoration of the building. The chapel is part of the Ascension Church complex behind the Serpukhov Gate. This temple was built in the 17th-18th centuries, closed in the 30s of the last century and reopened also in the 90s, several years before the construction of the chapel.
The construction of the chapel-church began with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II on the initiative of several parishioners named Olga. In 2005, the Society of the Holy Princess Olga was created at the chapel, whose members are involved in charity work and participate in the arrangement of the church. In particular, with their efforts, a baptismal font for adults was installed by full immersion and the iconostasis was completed.
On the day of commemoration of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga, which is celebrated on July 24, an Orthodox conference called "Olga's Readings" is held in the church.
