Description of the attraction
The Church of Herman Solovetsky was built in 1859, and on May 24 of the following year was consecrated. Its low gable roof ends with a small dome with a cross. The head is covered with copper. The western wall with two barred windows and an arched doorway protrudes slightly from the basement of the Trinity Cathedral. This is how the church of St. Herman looks today after the restoration of the facade.
Researchers of the Solovetsky architecture did not pay due attention to this outwardly inconspicuous building. However, in the historical aspect, this is one of the most significant sacred objects of this monastery - the tomb, in the place of which earlier in the old chapels of the 16-18 centuries. the graves of three Solovetsky saints were located: Savvaty, Herman and Markell.
In the monastery inventory of 1668, it was not the tomb that was noted, but the "chapel of the Monk Herman". The chapel of St. Herman in the middle of the 18th century was a not very large rectangular log building with a wooden gable roof, completed with a small dome and with a rectangular window in the center of the wall on the west side.
In 1753, an architect from Kholmogory built a stone one on the site of the former wooden chapel. The chapel was built quadrangular with an octagonal. In the next century, the Hermann chapel retained its appearance. A number of engravings depict this chapel. The four-pitched roof covers the quadrangle. An octagon with light windows is arranged on the quadrangle. The octagon is completed by a drum with a dome. You can enter the tomb through the entrance from the west, through a rectangular door.
The chapel of the 18th century in 1859 was replaced by the existing building of the church, which turned out to be in the basement of the Trinity Cathedral, which was simultaneously built with it. Judging by the inventories of 1866 and 1899. This church had a gable roof, on it - one small chapter, covered with iron and painted with cobalt, an eight-pointed wooden cross, gilded with red gold on the Mardan. The very premises of the church are stretched out.
There were 4 windows in the altar (one is laid), in the church itself there were five windows. All windows have bars. The entrance doors from the west are wooden, from the outside they are complemented by lattice iron doors. The church housed an iconostasis. A photograph taken by Jacob Leuzinger at the end of the 19th century captures the interior of the church at that time. The vaulted room is whitewashed, the floor is lined with square white stone slabs. Farther away is a single-stage salt. A carpeted path leads to the Sole and royal doors. The iconostasis is rather modest. On the wall on the south side, in the gaps between windows, there is an icon. An elegant chandelier with twelve candles hangs from the ceiling. The windows have summer frames and are covered with curly iron bars. Opposite the memorial plaque located at the southern wall, on a not very high stone pedestal, there is a reliquary of the Monk Herman.
In Soviet times, when a concentration camp existed on Solovki (1923-1939), the church was completely destroyed, although not immediately, but the entire interior was destroyed. In 1923, when the concentration camp based on Solovki began to vigorously develop the buildings of the closed monastery, the church was defended. This was facilitated by the fact that the church was one of the few buildings that did not suffer during a severe fire that happened in 1923. At the concentration camp, a food stall was placed in the church for prisoners.
At the end of the 20th century, the Hermann Church was an empty room with an earthen floor. Only at the very entrance there have been preserved 2-3 rows of white stone slabs. At the entrance in the southwest corner, on one of the slabs there was a small depression, probably left by kneeling people who were praying.
