The lost Orthodox Church located in Karelia was an outstanding monument of Zaonezh wooden architecture, an object of republican cultural heritage. The Assumption Church was located in Kondopoga, in the historical part of the city.
Once here, on the shore of Lake Onega, there was a village of the same name. Among the many tented wooden churches, she was not equal in beauty, although experts did not note any fundamental differences.
Temple history
The end of the 16th century was a difficult time for the Russian North to intervene: the Livonian War was lost, the Swedes hosted Karelian district. The scribe books of 1582-1583 contain information about the murders of local peasants and the burning of the Assumption Church.
Two years later, a new temple was built on this site with three altars and a tent looking upward. But this church was destroyed by fire. And again, it was very quickly restored from the ashes. In the land chronicles of 1619, the new church in Kondopoga was described as a warm church with an iron-covered roof and a refectory.
Fourth temple
The fourth Assumption Church in Kondopoga was erected in 1774. By the time the new church was consecrated, images for the iconostases were prepared. Especially for this church, a list of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God was written, which became exact copies of the miraculous image.
At first, the iconostasis was a boat, but then it was closed with carved structures, which was made in the style of Catherine’s baroque. The walls of the new church were decorated with an image from the iconostasis of the dismantled previous church. The builders put all their skill, soul and knowledge into their brainchild, which they adopted and absorbed from their fathers and grandfathers. They were taken into account and skillfully used by the builders of the Assumption Church in Kondopoga.
According to visual impressions, the building was very elegant, light and even, oddly enough, it seemed miniature. Most likely, this is due to the fact that the builders managed to apply the principle of proportionality in its construction.
In the second half of the 19th century, a whole temple complex was built around the unique Assumption Church in Kondopoga. In addition to the Assumption Church itself, it included a tent bell tower with six bells and a winter church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The five-domed Church of the Nativity of the Virgin was planked and painted white.
Temple after the revolution
In accordance with the Decree on the separation of the church from the state, as well as the instructions of the People’s Commissariat of Justice and the Museum Affairs Department, all the property of the Assumption Church was transferred to the Museum Affairs Department. The bell tower in the temple complex stood only a hundred years after construction. It was barbarously destroyed in the thirties. By the time of its destruction, she had already lost her voice - five of the six bells disappeared without a trace, and the last was taken to the farmyard.
In the Holy Mother of God Church of the Nativity of the Nativity, grain was first dried in the Soviet era, and later a collective farm club was set up, bearing the symbolic name “Culture”. The church was never rebuilt, but restoration work was carried out in 1927, 1950 and in 1999.
In the summer of 1960, the Assumption Church in Kondopoga (Karelia), by decision of the Council of Ministers of Russia, was taken under state protection. For some time the temple was a branch of the museum of local lore of the city. In recent years, the church building did not belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. Divine services were not performed in it; the last priest, father John Lyadinsky, was shot in 1937.
Architecture features
The Assumption Church was a hipped wooden church. The main volume consisted of two octagons, which were placed on the quadrangle, with an altar rectangular cut and two unusual hanging porches. The height of the log tower and tent, four and two octagons, was in the ratio of about 1: 2.
Above the altar the roof was oval, over the porch - gable. It was possible to enter the temple from the north and south sides, along the porches, each of which had eighteen steps. All proportions, repeated several times in the church, made the structure integral and unified.
Interior decoration
The old faces of the saints met the parishioners and all the visitors were already on the porch. Climbing it, they fell into a rather simple, but very spacious refectory. Benches stretched along its walls, and a low ceiling rested on two powerful carved pillars, similar to statues that held the ceiling on their “hands”. Massive pillars in three places were pulled by carved wire-hooks. A little higher than the second of them, curly semicircular brackets extended to the ceiling from the pillars.
Iconostasis and ceiling-sky
Before the terrible tragedy, when there was a fire in the Assumption Church in Kondopoga (Karelia), it contained a unique, baroque iconostasis, as well as an icon-painted ceiling.
The sky in the Church of the Assumption was the only example of the composition "Divine Liturgy" in the current church. In its central medallion one could see the icon “Christ the Great Bishop”. Christ was surrounded by seraphim with cherubs located on 16 sides and on the frame of the central ring, angels dressed in deacon’s robes holding liturgical attributes. This composition seemed to emphasize the unity of the earthly and heavenly liturgies.
The murals were made on separate wooden icon boards, which were then collected into ceilings that had a conical shape.
Assumption Church in Kondopoga: who served in it?
At the beginning of the new millennium, services were still held in the church during the summer church holidays. To conduct services, a priest was formally appointed rector who served in another church in the city, Archpriest Leo Bolshakov. The last service was held three years ago.
The architectural monument had a director and two watchmen who were responsible for preserving the museum’s property. Unfortunately, during the arson, the watchman was not there.
Fire in Kondopoga
On August 10, 2018, the wooden Assumption Church burned down in Kondopoga. From it there was only a small fragment and wooden blockages. The fire alarm went off at 9:28. The first fire truck arrived at 9:41. The church, whose history dates back 244 years, was destroyed by fire in less than an hour.
The first and only version of the tragedy to date is arson. Together with a unique monument of wooden architecture, all the icons were destroyed by fire, among which were very valuable.
The culprit of the tragedy
The Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Karelia has opened a criminal investigation into the arson of a most valuable monument of history, culture and architecture - the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin. Naturally, everyone is interested in who set fire to the Assumption Church in Kondopoga. According to investigators, they turned out to be a 15-year-old teenager who was resting with his grandmother. He is detained and is in a temporary detention center, which is intended for juvenile offenders.
The fire in Kondopoga was a terrible shock for all believers. The Assumption Church burned down almost to the ground. The first verdict of experts sounded like a verdict: it cannot be restored.
Temple restoration
Meanwhile, the authorities of Karelia consider it possible to restore the Assumption Church in Kondopoga. The fact is that in the coming years its restoration was planned. All the necessary drawings and archival data were prepared, but no funds were allocated.
Specialists from the Moscow organization "Special Project Restoration" began the pre-restoration preservation of the church. Arthur Parfenchikov - the head of Karelia - said that experts began to mark the surviving elements, take measurements, disassemble and sort the structures. Debris was dismantled along the perimeter of the log house, the remaining parts of the church structures are stored in stacks in the adjacent territory.
Arthur Parfenchikov added that all work is carried out on a voluntary basis, at the request of volunteers on the basis of a permit issued by the Republican Office for the Protection of Cultural and Architectural Heritage. The Ministry of Culture of Russia believes that the restoration of the temple will require more than 100 million rubles.
The Northern Spiritual Path, a charitable foundation, announced the opening of an account to collect voluntary donations for the reconstruction of the Assumption Church in Kondopoga. The Board of Trustees was created to collect donations, and Metropolitan Karelian and Petrozavodsk Konstantin became its chairman. In addition, hegumen of the Valaam Monastery, Bishop Pankraty, was included in its composition. And I must say that the first funds are already being received. One of the first million rubles was donated by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
The brotherhood of the monastery on Valaam, headed by the abbot, realizing their Christian duty and the complexity of the upcoming work, are ready to take an active part in such a noble cause as the restoration of the burnt temple, which was a unique monument of Russian religious wooden architecture. Members of the Spiritual Council of the monastery announced the transfer to the account of a million rubles. But donations of ordinary parishioners are especially valuable.
Interesting Facts
- More recently, the Assumption Church was the tallest wooden religious building in Karelia: Its height was 42 meters.
- The pillars inside the temple were connected to the ceiling by massive semicircular brackets. It seemed that they symbolize a man who raised his hands to heaven in prayer. Most culturologists believe that these columns are a symbol of the Goddess Beregini. This is interesting because Bereginya is a symbol of the pagan world of Karelia, which it was before the advent of Christianity. Thus, it becomes apparent that the statues of the pagan goddess were in the Orthodox church. Disputes about this have not ceased between researchers so far: many disagree with this statement and consider the columns simply an element of the interior.
- It is interesting that during the Second World War, when the city of Kondopoga, along with the main part of Karelia, was occupied by the Finnish troops, worship services were regularly held in the Assumption Church, not only Orthodox, but also Lutheran. About the times of occupation, the Finnish military archive has preserved many priceless photographs depicting the Assumption Church along with the five-domed winter temple that was preserved at that time.
Like the vast majority of believers in our country, parishioners of Kondopoga believe that they will be able to raise the necessary funds for the restoration of a unique temple.