Description of the attraction
The Church of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Kings Helena and Constantine is an Orthodox church located in Vologda and erected around 1690: the temple is also one of the best monuments of the 17th century. The church is located in a historically significant area - the Verkhniy Posad between the streets that were previously called Kobylkina and Konstantinovskaya. In addition, the church is considered an architectural monument and has federal protection.
It is believed that the first temple was built in 1503 at the meeting place of the grave icon of Dmitry Prilutsky, which has not survived to this day, which returned from the victorious campaign of Tsar Ivan III against the Tatars. We have heard that in the 16th century, next to the church, the road to Moscow and Kostroma began, where a meeting could take place. According to another point of view, during the campaign of Ivan the Terrible to Kazan, a hagiographic icon depicting Dmitry Prilutsky from the famous Spassky Cathedral of the Prilutsky monastery was taken with him.
Around 1690, a stone church was built on the site of a previously existing wooden church building, which has come down to us. There was an assumption that this temple refers to the mention of the building by Yaroslavl craftsmen of the church of Dmitry Prilutsky in 1653 in Vologda. The consecration of the church took place in honor of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Kings Helena and Constantine, and the lower side-altar of the church - in the name of Dmitry Prilutsky.
In memory of this significant event, which served as the reason for the construction of the church, a liturgy was held annually in the summer on June 3 in the Cathedral, as well as in the Church of Helena and Constantine, and after that there was a procession of the cross from the city limits to the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery. During 1898-1911 the Vologda local historian and writer Father Sergiy was the church priest. On February 24, 1930, the temple was closed; a little later it housed a knitwear factory and a cultural institution. The church interior was completely ransacked, and inside was the warehouse of a hardware store.
In 1997, the temple of Helena and Constantine was returned to the church; from that moment, its full recovery began. Already in 1998, divine services were resumed in it, and in 2008, not only the lower church, which had been operating since 1998, but also the upper one, began to operate. In addition, the tradition of religious processions was revived. In April 2008, eight new bells were raised on the temple bell tower, weighing from 10 to 430 kg, which were brought from the city of Tutaev.
As for the architectural component, we can say that the Church of Helena and Constantine refers to the architecture of the Russian pattern. The temple is two- and four-pillar, five-domed, located on the basement and has a bell tower, which determines the influence of the capital's architecture. This kind of architectural type was especially popular not only in the city of Moscow, but also in Yaroslavl, as well as in other cities. At the end of the 17th century, the Russian baroque also entered the Vologda architecture, although the spirit of the pattern has not completely faded away. The Church of Helena and Constantine is the only surviving temple of this era in the city of Vologda. Other typical monuments were destroyed in the late 1920s.
The main composition of the temple, a porch decorated with column-barrels, a creeping arch and weights, a perspective painted portal of the upper church, details of the external decor - half-columns, kokoshniks, dormer windows of a hipped-roofed bell tower - all these are the most typical features of ornamental architecture. The empire dome above the porch is a sign of later rebuilding. Judging by the compositional design of the church facades, the temple has no exact analogies among others in Vologda, which makes it possible to assume that it was built by visiting craftsmen, but still most of the rest, most likely, were erected by local craftsmen. The hipped bell tower consists of three tiers in octal diameter. Bell eights brought to the ground.
In the upper part there was a five-tiered iconostasis with carved thin boards and baroque columns of late origin. During the Soviet era, the icons were transported to the Vologda State Art and Historical-Architectural Museum-Reserve.
