Description of the attraction
In Marienburg (Gatchina-1) of the Leningrad Region, on Krugovaya Street, in building number 7, there is a functioning Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. The reason for the construction of the temple in Marienburg is that in the middle of 1838, at the request of the imperial family, the services of the Jaeger Quarter were transferred here. Almost at that very hour, a petition was filed for the highest name with a request to create a new temple in the new Jaeger settlement.
The laying of the first stone of the building of the temple was made on May 25, 1886 by Protopresbyter John Yanyshev, who was the personal confessor of the members of the imperial family. The project of the church was developed by the St. Petersburg architect David Ivanovich Grimm, who was also a researcher interested in the history of ancient Russian and Byzantine architecture. By the way, it was Grimm who was the architect of the Vilikoknyazheskaya tomb in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Working drawings were made by academician I. A. Stephanitz. The project was approved by Emperor Alexander III.
Two years later, in November 1888, the temple was consecrated by John Yanyshev in the presence of Emperor Alexander III. It is noteworthy that the consecration ceremony took place a month later, after the imperial family miraculously escaped during a train wreck in the vicinity of the city of Kharkov.
Until March 15, 1918, the Church of the Intercession was under the jurisdiction of the court department. Then, when, after the February events, the imperial hunt was abolished, the church was handed over to the diocesan clergy.
In 1933, by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Intercession Church in the Yegerskaya Slobodka was closed, and all the interior decoration was either looted or destroyed.
During the German occupation, during the Great Patriotic War, in the Church of the Intercession, starting from October 1941, services were held, which were conducted for the flock until 1942 by priest John Pirkin and then, until his arrest in 1944, by priest Vasily Apraksin. At the same time, a temporary plywood iconostasis was installed there, which was replaced with a new one, donated to the church by the Leningrad Theological Seminary, only in 1952.
In 1952, the church was renovated, and in the same year the church was solemnly consecrated. In 1957 the temple was surrounded by a new fence. In 1959, a wooden church house appeared.
Behind the altar of the Intercession Church, Archpriest Vasily Levitsky, Archpriest Peter Belavsky, former rectors of this church and Archpriest John Preobrazhensky found eternal rest.
The architectural solution of the Pokrovskaya Church creates a harmonious ensemble with the buildings of the former Yegerskaya Sloboda. The church is crowned with five once gilded, and now blue, onion domes, crowned with crosses. Two gilded onion domes crown the belfry located above the entrance to the church. The elements of the facade decor clearly show the motives of Old Russian architecture.
The main decoration and heart of the church was the three-tiered carved iconostasis, which was made of oak by the masters of the St. Petersburg factory of E. Schrader.
