Description of the attraction
The Church of Maxim the Confessor (also called the Church of Maxim the Blessed) is located in the historical center of Moscow - in Kitay-gorod, on Varvarka.
The person whose name she bears lived in Moscow in the first half of the 15th century and was an urban holy fool. In 1434 he was buried here, on Varvarka, and after about a hundred years he was canonized. At the place of his burial, cases of miraculous healings began to be noted.
The stone church, the main altar of which was consecrated in honor of Maxim the Blessed, was built at the end of the 17th century. Before that, the temple was wooden and was named in honor of the holy princes, brothers Boris and Gleb. Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna, mother of Peter the Great, took part in the fate of the temple in the second half of the 17th century.
The new building at the very end of the 17th century was erected with funds donated by Maxim Sharovnikov, a Kostroma merchant and his Moscow colleague and namesake Verkhovitinov. Fragments of the old building from the end of the 16th century became part of the new building. One of the chapels of the church was consecrated in honor of the Confessor, therefore the temple became known under two names.
The next major renovation of the temple took place in the first half of the 18th century after a fire in 1737. A hundred years later, after the Napoleonic fire, an Empire bell tower in two tiers was built near the church instead of the belfry.
Under Soviet rule, the temple was closed in the 30s, its building lost its head and valuable elements of utensils and decoration. After restoration in the 60s, the building was transferred to the All-Russian Society for the Conservation of Nature. The building was returned to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 90s.
