Description of the attraction
Tsar Ivan the Terrible favored the monastery. Here, within the walls of the Trinity Cathedral, he was baptized, often visited the holy monastery and tried to give gifts in every possible way. In 1559, by his order, he ordered to lay the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos here. At that time, the monastery had already grown and needed a more spacious temple. Construction lasted 26 years and ended a year after the death of the first Russian tsar. The solemn consecration of the temple took place already under its successor - Tsar Theodore Ioannovich.
The Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin became a model for the eponymous church of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, but inferior in size. Majestic and austere, the monastery cathedral became the largest building of the monastery. It is located in the center of the monastery land - in the eastern part of the cathedral square. The temple stands on six pillars carrying five heads. Large domes are quite closely pressed against each other. The central dome is covered in gold, while the rest are painted in blue with sparkling stars. Initially, the heads were helmet-shaped, and in the middle of the 18th century they became poppies, retaining this shape to our times.
The walls, vaults and pillars of the cathedral are decorated with biblical frescoes by Yaroslavl icon painters together with local masters headed by Dmitry Grigoriev. Most of the paintings depicting the Assumption of the Mother of God. The majestic five-tiered carved iconostasis further emphasizes the solemnity of the temple. At the top, on the reverse side of the iconostasis, a three-tiered wooden gallery for the church choir was built. The sound flows through the temple "like from heaven". Under the domes, there are two descending copper carved chandeliers, made by the masters of the Armory in the 17th century.
The main altar of the cathedral - the Assumption - is located in one of the five apses of the temple. On the other side of the iconostasis, three more limits are built. One - in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who saved the monks and parishioners from the scurvy epidemic during the siege by the Poles in 1609. The other two are in honor of the saints the great martyr Theodore Stratilates and the martyr Irina, whose names were given to Tsar Theodore Ioanovich and his wife Irina Fedorovna. The last two chapels were built during the construction of the temple. Hoping to win the grace of God and conceive children, the couple tried in every way to bestow the temple. A large cross in the altar of the cathedral marks the place where the young Peter I sought shelter during the rifle revolt of 1682. They say that one of the angry archers burst into the temple and raised a knife over the sovereign, but was stopped by his comrades. There is an altar in the fifth apse.
On the northwest side of the temple, you will find the tomb of the Godunov family, over which a tent tent was erected in 1780. The building has not survived to this day.
On the southwest side of the cathedral is the 17th century Nadkladieznaya chapel on the site of the newly discovered holy spring. The rich decoration of the four-tiered chapel in the early Russian baroque style ("Naryshkin style") is emphasized by the white walls of the Assumption Cathedral.
Until 1786, the church housed a wooden coffin of St. Sergius of Radonezh, in which he was buried until the relics were moved to a silver shrine and transferred to the Trinity Cathedral of the monastery.
Initially, the Assumption Cathedral was conceived as a summer one. Services were held in it only during the warm season. It was only in the 1980s that work began on the insulation of the temple. The powerful stately temple can accommodate up to five thousand parishioners. Divine services are held here daily.
