Restoration on a top street

The temple of Philip Apostle and Nikola of the Wonderworker, current state

Cognitive dissonance

When the author of these lines was not so actively interested in the ancient Russian architecture and first came to Novgorod, he, of course, previously studied the materiel - those architectural monuments that can be seen in Novgorod. But he came across a book of the 60s of the publication, which included the Church of Philip Apostle on a top street, built in the 16th century.

Imagine my surprise when, instead of a plain construction in an emergency state, I saw a church, like which I had never seen before at all. Under one roof there were two temples, completely equal, fused with walls, like Siamese twins. What happened? Were I wrong? No, here is the tablet - "The Church of the Philip of the Apostle and Nikolai Wonderworker on the Titter Street, the 16th century." But what then did I see in the photo in the old book? I had to understand.

Frescoes of the temple - painting of the beginning of the 18th century

A series of buildings on a top street

In the terrible 1194 year for Novgorod, when most of the city burned out and the people were afraid to sleep in houses and lived in an open field, on the trading side a certain Radoslav Danilovich put a wooden church in the name of the Apostle Philip. Apparently, it was a prominent temple - either the founder promised to build a church, if the fires end, or if he himself is saved, it does not matter. The first temple was built and stood 105 years - a fairly long time for the wooden construction of those times. In 1299, the fire did not spare this church either, in the same year they built a new one, which again stood before the fire - this time 1347. Also a wooden church, and also burned down. Finally, in 1383 they build a stone Filippov temple, and next summer they consecrate it. Then, the Filippov Church has a chapel of Nikola. Nikolsky chapel “nurtured” the neighboring Bardovaya street. Either the inhabitants of this street had its own church of Nikola, and after the fire they “sheltered” the Filippovsky chapel, or how else. We know one thing for sure - in 1527, the inhabitants of these two streets together decided to make out the old temples and build new ones. For what? Perhaps the old churches no longer accommodated all the parishioners, maybe the temples were dilapidated, or maybe it took the street children with a basement - a basement, where values in case of fire would be stored. But if the Church of Philip was rebuilt as he was, then instead of a small outfit, Nikola was built equal to the Filippov Church - in equal streets. So these Novgorod “Siamese twins” stood until the 19th century, when the St. Nicholas Church was dismantled due to dilapidation, leaving only one wall as a buttress-support.

Recovery

And the history of the restoration of the Nikolsky temple in former forms is very interesting. Oddly enough, but the initiator of this in Soviet times was ... The Orthodox Church. The fact is that immediately after the war, the only active temple in Novgorod was the Nicolas-District Cathedral. However, the authorities thought that this was too much for believers and needed a smaller temple and away. And the Church of Philip was well preserved since the war, and was located nearby, and was busy with a warehouse that was easy to take out. Therefore, the group of restorers was instructed to quickly put the construction in order. During the work, it turned out how she really looked. True, it was not immediately possible to convince the high superiors of the need to restore the St. Nicholas Church - it took as many as 17 years, while they categorically refused to appoint this case the restoration of the restoration of the Cororifa - Grigory Stenter. Because the latter was a member of the party. The work was headed by Ninel Kuzmina.

Temple at the beginning of the XX century

This was what the Church looked like in the 17th century

But now, in Novgorod, anyone can see a twice unique monument-firstly, the only “double” temple in Novgorod (the second one is only in Pskov-the Church of Christmas and the Protection “from the break”) and one of the three cathedrals of the great city.

Alexey Paevsky

Photos of the author, reconstruction and old pictures - from the book by N. Kuzmina “The Church of the Philip Apostle and Nikolai Wonderworker on the Titter Street”