Description of the attraction
The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Nikolsky Lane is also known under the name "Red Ringing", which it received for the beautiful melodic ringing of its bells. One of the "voices" of the belfry of St. Nicholas Cathedral belonged to the bell, which was presumably cast in the second half of the 16th century and was taken as a trophy by Alexei Mikhailovich during the Russian-Polish war. At present, the "voice" is kept in the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve.
It is known about the church that in 1561 it already existed in stone. The merchant Grigory Tverdikov took part in its construction with money. The next renovation of the church took place after the fire in 1626. At the end of the 17th century, the church became the burial place for the head of Alexei Sokovnin, a boyar who rebelled against Peter the Great and was quartered for this.
After the middle of the 19th century, the old church building was dismantled, and a new one was built in its place, which has survived to the present day. The authors of this project are named two architects - Alexander Shestakov and Nikolai Kozlovsky. The construction was carried out at the expense of one of the representatives of the Polyakov merchant family.
In the first years of Soviet power, the so-called renovationists settled in the building of the temple - representatives of a religious trend that was not recognized either by the church or later by the Soviet government, although the renovationists were its supporters. In 1927 the temple was closed, one of the bells was sent to Kolomenskoye. Rough changes were made to the structure of the building, and it became a room for an electrical substation. By the beginning of the 90s, when the building was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, it was already in a dilapidated state.
St. Nicholas Church "Red Bell" was re-consecrated in 1996. In order for the temple to regain its melodic "voices", in 2001 seven new bells were cast at the Ural enterprises and the upper part of the bell tower was restored.
