Description of the attraction
The Church of John the Baptist of the 10th century is the oldest ground-based Christian church in Eastern Europe, which has survived and is still in operation. According to legend, the temple was erected on the site where the Apostle Andrew, who founded the first Christian community here, preached. In 1999, archaeologists discovered an ancient image of a Christian cross here, dating from the end of the 1st - the beginning of the 2nd century.
It is a small, graceful, Byzantine-style church with a single dome on a high drum. The massive walls are composed of alternating strips of white stone blocks and red bricks. The vault of the temple rests on four dark gray marble columns that have survived from an older temple. A stone bell tower from the middle of the 19th century is attached to the western side.
In the 80s, the church building was reconstructed. The author of the restoration project is the architect E. I. Dopushinskaya. The churches returned the lost appearance of a masterpiece of Byzantine architecture, and by 1990 it became operational again.
Description added:
FKTs 05.12.2012
Over the past centuries, the church has "grown" into the ground so that in order to simply enter it, it was necessary to remove a layer of alluvial soil up to 2 meters thick around it!
Reviews
| All reviews 4 Alenka 2017-21-06 15:59:57
church The building is very beautiful on the outside, but nothing has survived inside, all the frescoes have been removed, except for one on the outer facade. The church was in an extremely neglected state for a very long time. But the place is very good, it's worth lighting a candle
