Description of the attraction
The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in the Ostankino estate of Prince Mikhail Cherkassky was built in 1677-1692. The construction was carried out by Pavel Potekhin, a serf stone master. A feature of this church is the absence of a refectory, apparently due to the fact that it was a home church.
The temple is set on a high basement and is crowned with five large onion domes. The church has three chapels: the northern Tikhvin chapel, the southern chapel of Alexander Svirsky and the middle chapel of the Life-Giving Trinity. The composition of the building is strictly symmetrical. This is a pillarless temple, the bulbous domes of which are installed on thin elongated drums, at the base of which there are two tiers of kokoshniks. The lush decoration of the church is made of red brick, decorated with white stone carvings and glazed tiles.
The hipped bell tower was dismantled in 1739 and rebuilt in the Baroque style. Later, when the estate passed into the hands of Count A. D. Sheremetyev, the bell tower was rebuilt again and again became hipped, as this form was more suitable for the 17th century temple. At the end of the 19th century, a rich neo-Russian style tent was erected over the covered porch of the temple.
The iconostasis of the church dates back to the 17th century and consists of nine tiers. The frames of the icons are decorated with through gilded carving, twisted columns, and grape vines. From the original carved iconostasis, only the lower part with the royal gates has been preserved.
Since the estate stood on the way to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, members of the royal family and even such representatives as Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Empress Elizabeth Petrovna often stayed in the Ostankino Palace.
The temple remained operational until 1933-34. Later, an anti-religious department was set up here. In 1991, Patriarch Alexy II consecrated the throne of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity.
