Description of the attraction
The former Orthodox male monastery, which is located in Moscow near Andronievskaya Square, was called differently: Andronikov, Spaso-Andronikov and Andronikov Monastery of the Savior Not Made by Hands. Today, the complex of buildings, where the monastery was located before the revolution, is open Andrei Rublev Central Museum of Old Russian Culture and Art … Divine services are held only in the Savior Cathedral on the territory of the former monastery. In 2019, the Russian Orthodox Church made a proposal to transfer all the premises of the former monastery for their use in accordance with its own charter.
The history of the founding of the monastery
The theological discipline that deals with the study of the lives of the saints is called hagiography. According to hagiographers, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia Alexy, who went to Constantinople in 1354, almost died, being caught on the way by a strong storm. He prayed a lot to be saved, and promised, in case of a successful outcome, to build a cathedral in Moscow. The temple was to be consecrated in honor of the saint who will patronize the day the journey ends. In the Golden Horn Bay, the ship with the Metropolitan on board entered day of celebration in honor of the Savior Not Made by Hands, and the monastery in Moscow, founded by the saint, was consecrated as the Andronikov Monastery of the Savior Not Made by Hands.
Secular scholars who have researched the issue explain why the date of the foundation of the monastery is 1357. According to historians, Metropolitan Alexy, who visited Constantinople again in 1356, brought to the monastery the icon of the Savior Image Not Made by Hands, which has become a revered shrine of the monastery. He handed it over to the monastery in August 1357, when the monastery's Savior Cathedral was consecrated. In honor of the Bay of Constantinople, a tributary of the Yauza was named, and one of the nearby streets of the capital was renamed Zolotorozhsky Val.
The name of the monastery also contains the name of its first abbot - Andronicus, who was one of the beloved disciples and companions of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
Cloister in the Middle Ages
In 1368, a fire broke out in the monastery, and the first Spassky cathedral, built of wood, was completely destroyed in the fire. Soon after the tragedy, the temple was rebuilt using a thin burnt brick called plinth as a building material. In the first third of the 15th century, the cathedral was thoroughly rebuilt, and only white-stone reliefs with fragments of plant compositions and mythical animals depicted on them remained in it.
In the 20s of the 15th century, a famous and revered Russian was a monk of the Spaso-Andronikov Monastery. icon painter Andrei Rublev … It is believed that the master died at the monastery in 1428 during an epidemic and was buried there. However, his grave has not yet been found.
In the second half of the 15th century, a settlement arose outside the walls of the monastery, called the monastery settlement. There lived artisans who made bricks. The Kremlin was being built in Moscow at that time, and bricks for the construction of walls and towers were required in huge quantities. The Andronikov monastery itself at this time became one of the largest centers for the correspondence of church books in Russia. Numerous works of the famous religious publicist and writer were kept in the monastery. Maxim the Greek.
Monastery in the 17th-20th centuries
Queen Evdokia Lopukhina at the end of the 17th century, she began to rebuild the monastery. With her light hand, a temple appeared in the monastery above the refectory, containing the churches of Metropolitan Alexei and Michael the Archangel. The lower tier of the temple was intended for the Lopukhins family tomb. A small Church of the Icon of the Sign of the Mother of God.
Several decades later, the walls of the monastery were rebuilt from stone. A bell tower rose to the sky above the Holy Gates, the height of which was 73 m. The author of the project Rodion Kazakov placed in the lower tier of the bell tower church in the name of St. Simeon the God-receiver.
During the war with Napoleon, the monastery was plundered by the French, and after the invaders set fire to the monastery, the archive, the iconostasis and the heads of the Spassky Cathedral died in a fire. The temple was restored in the middle of the 19th century, when two chapels were added to the cathedral - St. Andronicus and the Assumption of the Virgin.
The arrival of Soviet power was met by a dozen monks of the Andronikov Monastery, but only a year after the revolution, the monastery was closed. The first concentration camp was placed within its walls, where opponents of the new government were kept. Until 1922, mass shootings and executions of officers of the tsarist army were carried out on the territory of the monastery, and then a colony for street children was opened. In 1928 the monastery was taken over by the Hammer and Sickle factory and rooms for workers were arranged in its premises. Soon, the bell tower of Rodion Kazakov and the necropolis of the monastery with the graves of the icon painter Andrei Rublev, the patron of the arts Pavel Demidov, the founder of the Russian drama theater Fyodor Volkov and many nobles whose names are forever inscribed in Russian history were destroyed.
Revival of the monastery
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, historians managed to prove that the Savior Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery is the oldest surviving building in the capital. Painter and academician Igor Grabar created an initiative group in 1947, which turned to the government with a proposal to create a museum on the territory of the monastery. Stalin gave the go-ahead, but the work was frozen shortly after his death, and resumed only at the end of the 50s of the last century.
1960 was declared by UNESCO as the year of the Russian icon painter A. Rublev: six centuries have passed since the birth of the master of Old Russian painting. The Soviet government, under pressure from the international cultural community, was forced to allow the opening of the exhibition, and the museum in the Andronikov Monastery began its work.
The cathedral of the monastery was consecrated again in 1989 year, and now it hosts regular services. The destroyed bell tower was not restored, but only a wooden belfry was built. In addition to the Spassky Cathedral, the refectory (early 16th century), stone towers and walls (17th-18th centuries), the abbot's chambers (late 17th century), the Baroque Church of the Archangel Michael (late 17th - early 18th centuries), Brothers Corps have survived on the territory of the Andronikov Monastery. (early 18th century), the building that housed a religious school (first third of the 19th century) and the ancestral burial vault of the Lopukhin family.
In 1993, as a result of archaeological research, the ancient throne of the Savior Cathedral and unknown burials under it were discovered.
Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art. A. Rubleva
The initiator of the creation of the museum on the territory of the Andronikov Monastery was a group of scientists, which included the architect and restorer P. Baranovsky, academician and artist I. Grabar, archaeologist N. Voronin and writer P. Maksimov. The scientists substantiated their proposal by the fact that the walls of the Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands on the territory of the monastery were painted by Andrei Rublev and his comrade Daniil Cherny. The exposition was officially opened in 1960.
Today the museum collection contains more than 13 thousand exhibits, including not only icons, but also frescoes, wooden sculptures, Old Russian books - handwritten and early printed - and archaeological rarities found during the restoration of the Savior Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery.
The most valuable and famous exhibits exhibited in the Rublev Museum date back to a huge historical period from the 13th to the 20th century:
- Icon of the Savior Almighty from Gavshinka - the oldest exhibit in the museum collection. The image of the Savior was written, according to some assumptions, in the XIII century, and according to other researchers - in the XI-XII centuries in Byzantium. The origin of the icon can only be traced back to the end of the 18th century, when it was in the Church of the Savior in the village of Gavshinka near Yaroslavl. The icon has a rather impressive size - 123x83 cm and is very well preserved.
- Small icon at the entrance to the Church of Michael the Archangel, where most of the exhibits are exhibited, also has a long history. This is an "inset" image that was placed in the Spassky Cathedral during its rebuilding in the 30s of the 15th century. The icon is embroidered with gold and silver and dates from the first third of the 15th century.
- Worthy of special attention of museum visitors frescoes were brought from different churches in Russia. Especially valuable are the works made by ancient craftsmen for the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa. These frescoes were painted in the 12th century. During the creation of the Uglich reservoir, the Trinity Cathedral of the Makaryevsky Kalyazin Monastery was flooded, whose 17th century frescoes are also kept in the A. Rublev Museum. During the construction of the Gorky power plant, several churches were lost, including the Church of the Resurrection in Puchezh. Her frescoes of the 18th century were saved and exhibited in the Andronikov Monastery, among other masterpieces of wall painting in the temple.
- The restoration of the Savior Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery, which began in the middle of the last century on the initiative of the group of I. Grabar, brought a lot archaeological finds … The collection of the museum showcases handmade stove tiles; dishes and church utensils; bells; products made using filigree technique and decorated with enamel; tombstones preserved from the lost graves of the monastery necropolis.
- A special place in the museum is reserved old books … Among the exhibits are manuscripts and early printed books, scrolls and letters. One of the oldest rarities is a book about the life of Basil the Great, dated to the 15th century.
In 1985, in front of the entrance to the monastery on Andronievskaya Square, a monument to Andrei Rublev … The portraits of Rublev, created during the life of the icon painter, have not survived, and the sculptor O. Komov presented to the viewer a creative artist, seeking and deeply believing. In the Spassky Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery, fragments of plant ornament on the slopes of the windows, which were part of the frescoes painted by Rublev and became the "final handicraft" of his life, have been preserved.
On a note
- Location: Moscow, Andronievskaya square, 10
- The nearest metro stations: "Ploschad Ilyicha", "Rimskaya"
