The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, is an Orthodox church in the town of Staritsa, Tver Region
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The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, is an Orthodox church in the town of Staritsa, Tver Region. Architectural monument.
The first mention of the temple of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa dates back to 1668.
The complex of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, better known as the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, who was considered the patroness of trade, is located on the left bank of the Volga River near the ancient old settlement. Once it was located on the Staritsa Torgovaya Square and, together with the many shopping arcades of the Gostiny Dvor, echoed the ensemble of the Assumption Monastery, located on the other side of the Volga. The townspeople often call the complex a nunnery. However, this is not a monastery, this is a magnificent ensemble of the temple, built in the XVIII-XIX centuries. And even today, despite the deplorable state, the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin is one of the sights and visiting cards of the city.
In 1728, by order of the Archbishop of Tver Theophylact, instead of the wooden church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, the construction of a stone church of the Nativity of the Virgin with a chapel dedicated to the ancient temple began. The Pyatnitsky chapel was consecrated in 1740, and the consecration of the main altar took place only 10 years later, in 1750, under priest Vasily Alekseev. Later, two chapels in the form of rotundas in the style of late classicism were added to the white-stone baroque church with a low bell tower on the north and south sides. The chapel in the name of Nil Stolbensky was built in 1806, the Holy Martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa - in 1825.
The complex, but strictly ordered composition of the ensemble of the Bogoroditskaya Church from the east was supplemented by a white-stone colonnade with two chapels and stairs descending from the rotundas to the banks of the Volga. Many domes - different in shape and located at different levels - make the picturesque appearance of the temple very intimate and cozy.
The Klirov Statement of the Staritsa district of 1828 indicates that the stone Church of the Nativity with the aisles of the Great Martyr Paraskeva (not yet consecrated) and the Monk Nil the Wonderworker (consecrated) was built in 1784. There was no arable and hay land at the church, in 115 parish yards (in Staritsa and the villages of Fedurnov and Konkovskaya Sloboda) there were 315 male and 385 female souls. The following served in the church at that time: priest Kosmin Vasily (32 years old, a priest since 1821), deacon Ivanov Ilia (55 years old, deacon since 1793), deacon Feodorov Peter (25 years old, a deacon in the Staritskaya Mother of God-Nativity Church since 1825), sexton Mikhail Kirillov (68 years old, sexton since 1784).
According to the data for 1901, the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Staritsa, built in 1784, had three thrones: the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Nil Stolobensky (in warm), the martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa (in cold). The following people served in the church: the priest Mikhail Antonovich Kazansky (41 years old, a priest since 1883), the psalmist Borisoglebsky Petr Ivanovich (28 years old, a psalmist since 1899). Parishioners in Staritsa and in the villages: Novo-Starkovo, Konkovskaya Sloboda, Fedurnov - 159 households (1,006 people - 457 men and 549 women). Under the altar of the church in 1791 a stone chapel was built in honor of the Nativity of the Virgin.
In 1914 they served: the priest of Kazan Mikhail (53 years old), the psalmist Smirnov John (46 years old). Parishioners in the town of Staritsa and the villages of Starkovo, Fedurkovo, Konkovo - 998 people (481 men, 517 women).
In the 1970s The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin was restored, but by the beginning of the 2000s. it was again in need of restoration.
The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary belongs to the type of church "octagon on a quadrangle" characteristic of the 18th century. The temple is single-domed with a heavy semicircular apse adjacent to it from the east. The corners of the quadrangle are decorated with spatulas, the windows - with baroque architraves with kokoshniks. The bell tower adjoining the temple from the west is completed with a high spire. Like a wreath, the temple is surrounded by a ring of buildings of different times. Particularly interesting is the aisle temple, built in 1825 in the style of late classicism and representing a rotunda, decorated with pediments from the facades with a shallow loggia in the risalit. The dome crowning the temple is surrounded by gently sloping cupolas.
Of the other structures of the temple complex, a chapel, two elegant towers topped with a dome with a spire, a clergy house and a solemn colonnade, which is a gallery with paired columns of the Tuscan order, uniting all the buildings into a single ensemble, have survived to this day. Rotunda towers were once used as shops.
Buildings, in the decoration of which local white stone is widely used, form a very picturesque group. The authors of the complex extremely organically combined into a single whole buildings of different times, the decor of which combines motifs of late classicism and baroque.
