Description of the attraction
On Georgievskaya Street in the city of Vladimir, there is a church named after George the Victorious and is an ancient structure. Initially, the temple was built in 1157 by order of Yuri Dolgorukov - at that time it was located on the territory of the prince's court. It was not for nothing that the church was consecrated in honor of George the Victorious, because it was this saint who was especially revered in Russia, and was also the heavenly patron of Yuri Dolgoruky.
In the middle of 1778, the church was almost completely destroyed by fire, after which it was rebuilt in the provincial baroque style. The former temple left behind only freestanding stone blocks located in the plinths. At the end of 1847, a side-altar was added to the south side of the church, consecrated in the name of the holy prince Vladimir.
The Church of St. George the Victorious, which is in operation today, is fundamentally different from its original appearance. As you know, the Baroque style is characterized by elegance, harmony and grace of forms, which is why it was rarely used in the Vladimir region as a style for church objects of the second half of the 18th century.
The main volume of the temple is a two-sided equilateral quadrangle, which ends in the form of two eights. The church was crowned with a small onion dome, located on a cylindrical drum. On the east side, the quadrangle is adjoined by a small one-part apse, overlapped by a conch, and on the west side there is a refectory room and a hipped bell tower. The vaults and walls of the temple were painted in the first half of the 19th century by a talented craftsman who perfectly mastered the artistic techniques characteristic of the era of classicism.
In the early 1930s, St. George's Church was closed. During this period of time, the temple was somewhat damaged - the church head was badly destroyed from machine-gun shots.
After some time, the temple began to be used as an outbuilding for the needs of Soviet institutions. During the 1960s-1970s, a fat-and-oil plant operated here, and sausage was also produced. In the 1980s, an examination of the temple was carried out, as a result of which a layer of black oily soot reaching 1 cm was revealed. It is worth noting that at that time, not far from St. George's Church, there was a medical sobering-up center equipped with preliminary detention cells. Household facilities operating in the building and on the territory of the church caused enormous damage, the workers of which dug a hole designed to accommodate a huge metal container in which fuel oil was stored. This container was kept close to the foundation of the refectory room, the load-bearing wall of which was badly damaged. The last of the existing institutions in the area of the temple was the ensemble of music and choreography called "Cherry".
One of the grandiose ideas of that time was the creation of the Theater of Choral Music, the main feature of which was that choral groups rarely had premises intended for this purpose. According to the trends of those times, the project was bold and promising, because it provoked a rapid growth of the cultural public outlook among the urban population. In 1985-1986, in the building of the St. George Church for the purpose of placing the theater, proper design and research work was carried out under the leadership of the architect S. L. Meleshenko and engineer O. O. Shchelokova. Small restoration work was also carried out.
An unexpected event for the small town was a new architectural solution concerning the organization of a microdistrict in the cultural and historical center, as a result of which not only the Church of St. George the Victorious, but the entire St. George Street fell under the restoration project. Apart from the temple, the house of 1805, in which the City Pharmacy worked, was restored.
After 20 years, the temple has fallen into disrepair, and the musical theater has practically ceased to function. In early 2006, the Church of St. George the Victorious was returned to the Vladimir-Suzdal diocese, which belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate. Today the church is a monument of federal significance.
