Description of the attraction
In the current century, the Church of St. John the Evangelist near Elm was assigned to the Russian Orthodox University. The building was returned to the Orthodox Church in 1992, but services were resumed only a few years ago, since the building was occupied by the Museum of Moscow. The museum was housed in it in the 30s of the last century, when the temple was closed. Before the museum, it housed an archive and a communal museum. In the 90s, the Museum of Moscow was ready to vacate the church premises, but then it would itself be left without a roof over its head. The management of the museum received a postponement of the move, and in 2006 the premises of the Provision Stores, a complex built by the architect Vasily Stasov on Zubovsky Boulevard in the first half of the 19th century, were transferred to it. These were food warehouses, in which provisions for the army were stored, however, the warehouses were made in the Empire style.
The Church of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian, located in Moscow on New Square, is one of the oldest churches in the capital. It was built in 1493. The toponymic prefix “under the elm tree” most likely indicated a tree that grew in front of this temple several centuries ago, and then collapsed from old age. In the second half of the 18th century, there was no longer a powerful tree in front of the church.
The first wooden St. John the Theological Church was at first outside Moscow and entered its line only in the first half of the 16th century, after the Kitaygorod wall was erected, which was demolished in 1934.
The modern building of the church was built in the first half of the 19th century, it replaced the brick church of the mid-17th century. In the 19th century, the bell tower was also erected. The architects of the current building are Semyon Obitaev and Leonty Carlone. In the renovated church at that time, six thrones were consecrated at once, three upper and three lower temples. The main altar of the upper church was consecrated in honor of John the Theologian, and the central altar of the lower one - in honor of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos.
