Description of the attraction
The current building of the Church of Simeon the Stylite on Povarskaya Street, located in the Novy Arbat area, was built in the second half of the 17th century by the tsar's decree. Russia was then ruled by Fedor III Alekseevich, and the building of the temple was built on the site of a previously existing wooden church. Today this building, erected in the style of the Russian pattern, is recognized as an architectural monument of federal significance.
The first church building was probably built at the very beginning of the 17th century. Its construction, according to one version, was associated with the wedding to the kingdom of Boris Godunov in 1598, which took place on the day of veneration of Simeon the Stylite. According to another version, the first wooden church was consecrated a whole quarter of a century later.
The stone church, built in the 70s of the 17th century, was five-domed, had a refectory and a bell tower. According to the main throne, it was called Vvedenskaya, one of its side-chapels was consecrated in honor of Simeon the Stylite, the other - in honor of Nicholas the Wonderworker (later re-consecrated with the name of Dmitry of Rostov).
Several famous marriages were concluded within the walls of this temple. Here, in 1801, Count Nikolai Sheremetev was married to the serf actress Praskovya Kovaleva-Zhemchugova. 15 years later, the alliance of the writer Sergei Aksakov and Olga Zaplatina was concluded in the church. In 2005, the famous theater and cinema artist Nikolai Karachentsev and Lyudmila Porgina were married. Among the famous parishioners of the temple was the writer Nikolai Gogol, and the outstanding actor Pavel Mochalov lived in a house located on the territory of the temple.
In the first decades of Soviet power, the church was closed, its building gradually collapsed and had to be demolished during the construction of the Kalinin Avenue route in the 60s. The building not only survived, it was given the status of an architectural monument, and its restoration was started. The renovated building, however, houses a permanent exhibition of animals at the All-Russian Society for the Conservation of Nature. In the early 90s, works of art were exhibited in the former temple instead of animals.
Closer to the mid-90s, the church was re-consecrated and even regained the temple icon of Simeon the Stylite, lost during the Soviet hard times, and preserved by the parishioners.
