Description of the attraction
The Temple of the Kazan Mother of God is a historical and cultural monument of the 18th century. The history of this temple is more than 240 years old. The church is located on the top of a picturesque hill not far from the Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Monastery, in the old part of the village.
The name of the hill - Timofeyev Gora - is directly related to the legend of the Svyatogorsk Icon of the Mother of God. This legend is reflected in the Pskov chronicles: the life of St. Timothy and in the Svyatogorsk story. In the summer of 1569, the foolish shepherd Timofey, who lived in the Pskov suburb of Voronich, having made a cave in the mountain, spent forty days fasting and praying in this mountain. After his prayer, a miracle happened - an icon of the Mother of God "Hodegetria" appeared on the neighboring Sinichya mountain. The phenomenon took place in the presence of the people and priests from Voronich. Now he is canonized, and the mountain on which Blessed Timothy prayed is named Timofeev. The place where the miraculous icon appeared, the Titmouse, is called the Holy Mountain. The Svyatogorsk monastery was built here. Not far from it, on Timofeyeva Hill, the Kazan Church and the Pokrovskaya Chapel were built. An ancient rural cemetery is located around the temple.
It is known that A. S. Pushkin liked to visit the Kazan Church. Maria Ivanovna Osipova is buried near the Pokrovskaya Chapel. She knew the poet during his lifetime, one of the few was at his burial in the Svyatogorsk monastery. During his lifetime, Pushkin was keenly interested in the history of the Svyatogorsk monastery. In 1836, the journal Sovremennik published his laudatory review of the Dictionary of Saints, which, in particular, described the life of St. Timothy.
The Church of the Kazan Mother of God is also a parish church. It was built in 1765. In the same year, it began to operate and never closed. The building of the temple is wooden, painted blue. There is also a two-tiered bell tower overlooking the picturesque surroundings. There is also an icon of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov with particles of vestments and a stone, on which he performed his prayer for 1000 days and nights.
Since the temple functioned constantly, after the closure of the Svyatogorsk monastery in 1924, relics from its temples were transferred here. First of all, these are two miraculous icons of the Mother of God - "Hodegetria" and "Feodorovskaya". All this time, these shrines were kept in the Kazan Church. Only after the opening of the Svyatogorsk monastery in 1992, they were again transferred to the monastery. Many shrines from other churches that were closed during the Soviet era and destroyed during the Great Patriotic War are still in this church. Perhaps this temple would have faced the same fate as other temples, if not for the miraculous event that happened in 1922. An unknown person came to the church and began to blaspheme God and the image. He approached the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and thrust a sharp object into it. He immediately fell down dead. Apparently, this incident saved the temple from being closed and desolate. None of the officials dared to issue such an order. Many priests who served in the church during Soviet times suffered from repression and the communist regime.
After the Second World War, Blessed Paraskeva and other ascetics who lived on one of the slopes of Mount Timothy asceticised here.
In the middle of the last century, an ascetic, Blessed Claudia (Pachkovskaya) served in the church. She predicted the opening of the monastery and that the then abbot of the temple, Father Alexander (Balysh), would serve there. These predictions came true.
In 2000, work began on the restoration of the temple, and in 2004 - on the restoration of the Pokrovskaya chapel. Since September 2005, the church has kept part of the relics of St. Luke Voino-Yasenetsky, Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea.
