Description of the attraction
The Church of the Ascension of the Lord is located in Vladimir on Voznesenskaya Street. In ancient times, a monastery stood on the site of the church, mentioned in 1187 and 1218 in the Laurentian Chronicle. In 1238, during the invasion of the Tatars, the monastery was destroyed. The mention of the church is found in the patriarchal books in 1628, 1652, 1682.
The church was wooden until 1724, then a stone building was built, which has survived to our times. In 1813, a cold chapel was added to the church in honor of the Intercession of the Virgin. Most likely, at the same time, two upper bell tiers were built on, as evidenced by the similarity of the decorative solution of these two volumes. The church has a second warm chapel in the name of the Annunciation. The nature of the stylistic features indicates that the southern side-altar was built later than the northern one.
The Church of the Ascension is located in the southern part of the city in the middle of urban development dating back to the late 19th - first quarter of the 20th centuries. Shchedrin Street leads from the city center to the temple, smoothly going down. From the side of the central part of the city, the church is therefore not visible; a view of it opens from Shchedrin Street, which approaches the building of the temple from the north. There is a deep ravine to the west of the temple. From the east, the temple again bends around Shchedrin street, from which, both on the east and on the west, there is an active lowering of the relief, which turns into a deep ravine. Shchedrin Street also runs from the south side of the temple.
The best point for viewing the temple is the floodplain of the Klyazma River.
Today, the Ascension Church includes the building of the original construction, consisting, in turn, of the main volume, a vestibule with a porch, a small refectory, a bell tower and two side chapels from the north and south. Together, these volumes create a fairly compact composition.
In the composition of the ancient part of the temple, the quadrangle of the main volume is especially distinguished, which has a covering along a bent vault on four slopes. The original building in the plan is a rectangle elongated from west to east. From the east, a single-part apse adjoins the main volume. It represents smoothly expressed semicircles smoothly merging into each other, separated from each other by shoulder blades. In the western part, two side-chapels are connected to the refectory.
The main volume is a one-piece, single-column, columnless quadruple with two flat ceilings. The constructive solution of the arch of the main volume is peculiar - at the level of the heels of the arch, stripping is arranged in each face. They are located three on each side, their shapes vary from smoothly rounded to acute-angled.
On the vault above the second ceiling, painting has been preserved. The vault is completed with an octagonal light drum. The apse room is high and spacious, covered with a corrugated vault and blades, and has stripping above the middle window and above the entrances. The floor in the building of the temple is wooden. On the vault and on the walls, a plaster base for painting has been preserved.
Three arches connect the main volume to the apse. The arched passages also connect the refectory to the side-chapels. The low rectangular volume of the refectory covers the late flat vault. The side-altars and the apse are of the same height, but the apse has a higher roof.
The northern side-altar in the plan is a rectangle elongated from east to west, which ends in a semicircular apse in the east. It is a low-rise building with a pitched roof. The apse and the western part are highlighted on the facade of the north side-chapel. The side entrance to the north aisle is decorated with an Empire portico with a triangular pediment with double columns in the corners. A later annex adjoins the north side-altar from the west, fenced off from the side-altar by a wall.
The south aisle - wider and more spacious - is a rectangular building, which stretches from east to west and adjoins the old vestibule. Now the southern wall of this vestibule is absent, and so the old vestibule is united with the south aisle.
From the northwest, the refectory is adjoined by a slender, high, three-tiered bell tower, which ends with a faceted drum with a dome. The first tier of the bell tower is a clearly defined quadrangle, which has been preserved from the base of the old bell tower. The next two tiers have cut corners. The bell tower has large bell spans, which have different widths, which are much narrower on the northern and southern edges.
The Church of the Ascension, as a whole, is a typical example of the posad pillarless church, which is characteristic of the late 17th - early 18th centuries, and common in the Vladimir region.
